Junya Kawamura

Development of battery system for railway vehicle

West Japan Railway Company (JR WEST) has been developing battery-powered trains that are intended to improve energy saving for diesel cars in non-electrified sections. In our development, the battery system can be connected directly to the inverter due to its voltage. Simple circuit structure can be expected. We confirmed the possibility of the system by running test. In addition, we carried out thermal simulation and grasped heat characteristics as a next step. In this paper, we introduce the characteristics of our system, the results of running tests and thermal simulation.

Development of a train running energy simulator for commercial train running

Authors have developed a train running energy simulator with some functions of speed profile generators and an equivalent feeding circuit model for the purpose of the energy estimation of commercial train running. Energy consumption depends on feeding voltage, which varies according to the running position of the train and the condition of other running trains. Therefore, the developed simulator has an equivalent feeding circuit model for commercial train running. This paper verifies the developed simulator using recorded running data of commercial trains.

Study of practical energy-saving operation for electric railway vehicle

JR West has been promoting the energy-saving operation to improve the railway energy efficiency. In this paper, we report the practical energy-saving operation method obtained through the study of energy-saving operation of JR West and the result of its practical use in commercial operation.