Electric locomotives

An electric locomotive is a type of locomotive that is powered by electricity from an external source, rather than an on-board engine. This makes them non-autonomous, as they require an external electrical supply source to operate. Electric locomotives have a higher power-to-weight ratio than diesel locomotives, as they do not need to carry heavy engines for energy generation.From: Design and Simulation of Rail Vehicles [2019], 2 Emissions with Electricity [2020]

Electrifying Off-Road Motive Power

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Published in Clark W. Gellings, 2 Emissions with Electricity, 2020

Clark W. Gellings

Electric locomotives have a higher power-to-weight ratio than diesel counterparts, as on-board engines are not required for energy generation. Electric locomotives are faster and more powerful than diesels. Electric locomotives can accelerate and brake faster than diesels.

Dynamic performance of locomotive electric drive system under excitation from gear transmission and wheel-rail interaction

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Published in Vehicle System Dynamics, 2022

Ziwei Zhou, Zaigang Chen, Maksym Spiryagin, Peter Wolfs, Qing Wu, Wanming Zhai, Colin Cole

Since the gear transmission subsystem has major effects on the vertical and longitudinal dynamic performances of locomotives that are equipped with spur gear pairs [10], a vertical-longitudinal coupled dynamics model including the gear transmission subsystem is adopted in this section for reducing the computational cost. Based on the classic vehicle-track coupled dynamics model [4,5] and the subsequently developed dynamics models [2,6,31,32] with consideration of the dynamic effect of the gear transmissions, this locomotive dynamics model uses more practical dynamic traction torques that are controlled by the electrical subsystem. The dynamics model of a typical electric locomotive (B0-B0) which is widely used in China is shown in Figure 3, and it consists of a car body, two bogies, four wheelsets, four traction motors with their corresponding gear transmission systems, and the typical suspension units.

Electric locomotives

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Electrifying Off-Road Motive Power

Dynamic performance of locomotive electric drive system under excitation from gear transmission and wheel-rail interaction