Objective In view of the widespread pantograph-catenary abnormal wear in urban rail transit rigid catenary systems, it is necessary to study the wear patterns of carbon contact strips under different catenary arrangements, and to explore new arrangement schemes for rigid catenary in order to extend the service life of the pantograph-catenary system.

Method First, the surface wear patterns of carbon strips under different rigid catenary arrangements are studied, a wear calculation model for carbon strips is established, and the effect of stagger value change rate on carbon strip surface wear is analyzed. Second, the wear characteristics of carbon strips under commonly used catenary arrangements are investigated, and the intrinsic relationship between wear depth and stagger value change rate is summarized. Finally, taking the variance of the carbon strips thickness as an evaluation index for the non-uniformity of surface wear, a novel rigid catenary arrangement is designed using the PSO (particle swarm optimization) algorithm. The proposed arrangement is compared with five conventional arrangement schemes. Simulation calculations are carried out for the 20,000 train-km operation to evaluate the non-uniformity of surface wear and the minimum remaining thickness of carbon contact strips, followed by a comparative analysis.

Result & Conclusion  The stagger value change rate directly determines the uniformity of carbon strip surface wear: the smaller rate of change, the uniform wear on carbon strip surface. The new rigid catenary arrangement optimized based on PSO algorithm exhibits superior performance in improving wear uniformity and enhancing wear resistance of carbon contact strips. Compared with the commonly used single Z-shape and single sinusoidal arrangements in engineering practice, the proposed arrangement reduces surface the wear non-uniformity by 92.6% and 96.9%, respectively, and decreases the maximum wear amount by 74.7% and 80.2%, respectively, showing significant optimization effectiveness.