Objective The rigid catenary serves as a key power supply component for urban rail transit and mountain railway trains. Sliding contact current collection between the rigid catenary and pantograph is critical to the stable and safe operation of electrified railways. With the continuous operation speed increase for urban rail transit and mountain railway trains, the adverse impact of rigid catenary locator offset on the current collection performance of the pantograph–catenary system is becoming prominent. To guarantee stable current collection of the pantograph–catenary system, it is necessary to investigate the influence law of rigid catenary locator offset on pantograph–catenary contact force.

Method A nonlinear finite element model of the rigid catenary and a lumped mass equivalent model of the pantograph are established. The penalty function method is adopted to construct the pantograph–catenary coupling model, which is further validated in accordance with railway industry standards. Studies are carried out on the influence of different locator offset values on the current collection performance of pantograph–catenary system under two typical train operating speeds, taking into account single-locator offset and multi-locator offset, as well as both the upward and downward offset directions.

Result & Conclusion  Rigid catenary locator offset exerts significantly aggravated adverse impact on the current collection performance of pantograph–catenary system as the train speed increases, while the impact remains relatively limited for offsets within ±3 mm. For both single and multi-locator offset conditions, the upward and downward offsets produce roughly equivalent degrees of impact on the current collection performance.