Rapid charging energy storage system for a hybrid freight locomotive

This paper examines whether rapid charging technology could enable implementation in a hybrid freight locomotive design and how it might benefit the existing freight train operation scenarios. In the study, a hybrid locomotive design with rapid charging technology has been proposed and implemented with the application of advanced simulation techniques used in recent locomotive/train/track damage studies. The detailed hybrid locomotive model includes multibody subsystems for the locomotive mechanical system and a traction power system including a full battery pack model with an ESS (Energy Storage System) control algorithm implemented in the Matlab/Simulink software package. For the train performance study, the traction effort and dynamic braking characteristics obtained from the hybrid locomotive model have been incorporated into an in-house train dynamics package for the analysis of locomotive performance, infrastructure requirements and economics under a realistic operational study. © 2020 ASME