31101 Introduction Some of the recent technological innovations introduced by Foreign Railways are discussed below.

Advantages offered by these innovations in respect of operating performance and maintainability have also been indicated. With a view to use developed technology of 3phase drive system on Indian Railways, import of 3-phase drive system locomotives with technology transfer for subsequent indigenous manufacture is on hand. 31102 Conversion Equipment 1. With the availability of thyristor of higher power handling capability use of tap changer is being eliminated making the equipment entirely static. This will not only reduce attention required but also enhance reliability. Other very important benefit achieved by the thyristors is the capability they offer to control individually the supply to each motor permitting full utilization of the adhesion existing between the wheels and the rails. 2. Indian Railways have imported 12 locomotives from Japan and six from Sweden with this technology (WAG 6 series). Earlier a few experimental thyristor units were also fitted in existing locomotives, some of them with indigenous know-how. Indian Railways have also imported 25 sets of thyristor control traction equipment for fitment on 25 kV ac MG EMUs from UK. These are being fitted on 25 kV ac MG EMU coaches at ICF, Madras. Seven such thyristor controlled EMU rakes are presently in operation on MG Section of Southern Railway. 31103 Controls With the advent of solid state devices in general, and microprocessors in particular, more and more sophistication has become possible. Other things remaining the same, with step less control and consequent non-pulsating torque offered by such controls, higher average tractive effort can be achieved . The solid state control is fast acting and methods are now available to detect incipient slip and take corrective action before the slippage becomes uncontrollable and curative action is called for by reducing the tractive effort applied. Thus the locomotives can be made to develop tractive efforts to very high levels of adhesion coefficient. 31104 Drive 1. One of the severe restrictions imposed on the capability of electric locomotives is the dc series motor. These motors have limitations on their use because of windings on the rotor and assembly of commutators, making it vulnerable against centrifugal forces and requirements of satisfactory commutation. The 3-phase asynchronous motor with a bar rotor does not have the surface speed limitations. The useful portion of its speed torque characteristics is only near its synchronous speed. This useful portion can be spread over a wide range by varying the synchronous speed through frequency control. 2. With the advent of Gate Turn Off (GTO) thyristors problems associated with conversion of

dc into multiphase ac system have been eliminated and use of 3-phase synchronous / asynchronous motor has become feasible. "Variable Voltage and Variable Frequency" (VWF) control has been developed and use of induction motors as traction drives has been tried successfully on the different railway systems. With induction machines a maximum surface speed of 100 m /s is achievable and an rpm level of 4500 has been accepted in the railway systems in Europe. This considerably increases the output power of the traction motor for the same size. This state of art technology has yet to arrive in our country. 3. Typical power circuit along with brief details of locomotive fitted with asynchronous motors is shown in Fig. 11.01. 31105 Power Rating 1. Necessity for increasing the throughput resulted in the design of BOX "N" wagons. With these wagons, a trailing load of 47001 has been optimized. Further improvements are under consideration which may result in a maximum trailing load of 51001 on the existing loop lengths. Also efforts are on hand to increase the maximum speed of these stock to 100 km/h. For trailing loads of 4700 t, a 6000 HP locomotive with 45 t starting effort was taken as an optimum. Once the trailing load is increased to 5100 t and the speed potential to 100 km/h, the horsepower requirements further go up to 8000 with a starting tractive effort of 501. Indian Railways will require a 8000 HP loco to meet the increasing throughputs of freight traffic. 31106 Other Developments on Hand 1. Indigenous development of multiplexing and locotrol for use on long passenger and heavy-hauled goods trains. 2. Indigenous development of on board power factor correction equipment for improving power factor of locomotive. 3. Indigenous development of fault diagnostics for locomotive.