ee! oa te hed. Crom DESIGN OF STRAY CURRENT CORROSION CONTROL SYSTEM For Tae LANTAU AND AIRPORT RAILWAY PATRICK CHEUNG, MSc(Eng), DIC, CEng, MIEE, MKSE, Senior Design Management Engineer, ‘Mass Transit Railway Corporation, Hong Kong KENNETH MOODY, BSc, PE, Principal Professional Associate, ‘PB Transit and Rail Services Inc, USA > DAVE WONG, MSc, DIC, BSc, CEng, Registered PE, MIEE, FHKTE, Director, ‘Parsons Brinckerhoff (Asia) Ltd, Hong Kong ‘Synopsis. The Lantau and Airport Railway (LAR), a new transit system approximately 34 km in route length connecting the new international airport at Chek Lap Kok with the central district is under contruction in Hong Kong. The 34 lan long link will feature two lines, each providing a distinct service: the Airport Express Line, a dedicated service linking Central and Kowloon with the new internationa? airport at Chek Lap Kok; the Tung Chung Line, a domestic mass transit service linking Central and Kowloon with Tung Chung on Lanta Island. The traction power supply system consists of ar overhead Tine system at 1500 V direct current (dc) with traction current return via the running rails. Special measures have been exercised in the detailed design of the power supply system with a goal of minimizing de. stray current effects on transit structures and adjacent underground utilities. Of most Significance is the operation of the system with a floating negative system and a high railo-eark resistance value. . “This paper provides information about the new raitway and details ofthe stray current corrosion conto! mmeanmes. It also reports results of extensive computer simulations o calculate the anticipated Spotemaide stray current from the dc. system designed for the floating negative sysiem and the crociated variation in rail potentials, and the effects when the system is converted to a diode earthect system. 1 SysTEMDescrrrrion. railway and the Tung Chung New Town with an initial ‘population of 20,000. The programme will have a total “The Mass Transit Raitway Corporation (TRC) operates Costin the order of USS25 billions, and will be completed seein nase transit railway system (see Figure 1) ° by 1998, One ofthe components of ACP is the Lantau consisting of Kevan Tong Line (KTL), Tsuen Wan Line and Airport Railway (LAR) which will ink Lantau Island (TWA), Island Line (ISL) and Eastern Harbour Crossing ‘and Hong Xong’s new airport at Chek Lap Kok with the (EHC), In total, the system has a route length of 43.2 kam Central District (see Figure 2). The 34 km link will ‘with 38 stations transporting 820 million passengers in provide two services: a dedicated service linking Central 1996, at an average of 238 million passengers per ‘and Kowloon with the new intemational airport at Chek ‘weekday and with a record of 3,04 million passengers last Lap Kok, called the Airport Express Line (AEL); and 2 Chrismas Eve, The first three lines were constructed domestic mass transit service linking Central and between 1972 and 1986, EHC was added to the system Kowloon with Tung Chung on Lantau Island, called the later and was put into revenue service in August 1989. ‘Tung Chung Line (TCL). Both services will share the ‘Train services are provided by 8-car trains with an overall sunning tracks over mos. oftheir lengths, The LAR will length of 181 m, designed to transport 2500 passengers run for 8 km in tunnels (including 2 cross-harbour per train. tunnel), 6 km on elevated structures and 20 km at grade. ‘The construction of LAR is progressing well. It will be Inearly 1990s, the Hong Kong Government embarked on completed and fully operational in the middle of 1998 one of the world’s largest infrastructure programmes: the When completed, it will have 7 passenger stations and a Hong Kong Airport Core Programme (ACP) consisting a depot” ‘The projected average number of patronage pet state-of-the-art international airport on 1,670 hectares of day for the TCL and AEL are 266,000 and 39,000 reclaimed land, 34 km of highways, bridges, tmnnes, Tape pesowed atthe Aral Conference of fatnte of Comoton, ciober 1997, Gatwick, ited Kingdom Page|respectively for the initial years of revenue service, {creasing to 491,000 and 75,000 respectively by 2011 The LAR is characterized by filly air-conditioned passenger stations with platform screen doors to segregate the passengers from the tacks. To meet the service cbjectives of providing a short journey time between the terminal stations of both lines (namely 23. minutes beoveon Central and the new airport for AEL; and 25 rrinutes also berween Central and Tung Chung for TCL), the trains will operate at a top speed of 135 knv/h. During peak hours of ultimate operation, the TCL service will fave two S-car trains (6 power cars and 2 trailers pet train) per direction at 45 minute intervals, one will operate between Central and Tsing Yi and the other wil serve between Central and Tung Chung. The AEL service will have one 10-car train (7 power cars and 3 trailers per tain) per direction atthe same 4.5 minute intervals operating between Central andthe mew airport ‘The waction motors are of 3 phase altemating current (ac) induction motor type. All the mators of each power car are connected in parallel across the" GTO inverters ‘hich are fed from the 1500 V dc. overhead line supply. ‘With the train fully loaded, the starting curent isin the order of 5000 A at 1500 Vd. “The power supply for the traction power system is provided by the two power companies in Hong Kong at tither 132 KV or 275 kV ac. and is sepped down to 33 EV 2c. for disuibution to traction substations. A total of 15 action substations are located along the trackside at an average spacing of 2.8 km. The ac. power supply is further stepped down and rectified to de, with 2 nominal output voltage of 1500 V dc. to feed the overhead line through high speed dc. circuit breakers, Traction current rerum is via the running rails and negative return cables ‘Which are connected to the traction substation’s negative busbar. There is no intentional earth connection forthe negative bus ofthe rect so thatthe entire dc. tation power system is operating with a floating negative system, Tt —_StRay Cugren AND Mass TRANSIT (Over eighty percent of the world’s largest cities have dc sass or light rapid transit systems as large masses of people require low cost and dependable forms of transportation in the concentrated metropolitan areas, More systems are being favourably considered by various transit authorities at present ‘The use of dc, current has one inherent problem from 1a corrosion point of view. Most of the return current flows back to the substation as intended along the running rails. However due to the inherent voltage drop along the rails and the imperfect insulation between the rails and the ground, a portion of the return current leaks into the ground and will return to the substation through parallel paths provided by the ground itself and by other adjacent underground ‘metallic and reinforced steel structures such as water pipes, gas mains, tunnels, bridges, foundations, piers etc. This leakage current is referred to as stray current. When stray current comes into contact with an underground metallic structure, the structure forms an electrode and the soil an electrolyte. The point of current entry into the structure is the cathodic zone, ‘and the point of departure - back into the ground to ‘enter another structure or to return to a substation - an ‘anodic zone (see Figure 3). Stray current corrosion, a form of electrolytic corrosion, occurs at the anodic zone, Corrosion rates on common buried metallic structures are: + steel/iron: 9.07 kg per ampere per year + dead: 33.6 kilograms per ampere per year * copper: 10.3 kilograms per ampere per year While these rates can take many years to cause corrosion failure in ordinary soil and water corrosion conditions, a solidly earthed dic. powered transit systern fan generate very high level of stray current®) which ‘can cause perforation of 2 coated pipe at 2 coating break in a matter of weeks. Therefore, the emphasis when building a new transit system must be aimed at reducing and controlling stray current to the highest level possible within the realm of an economic, safe, and technologically feasible system. Computer modelling is now possible to determine voltage values and related stray current levels. This type of analysis considers the negative portion of the traction power circuit, an important portion of the stray current solution. Extensive computer simulation for the LAR stray current corrosion control system has been carried out and is described below. TL STRAY CURRENT CoMPUTER SIMULATION To assess effectively and accurately the railto-earth potentials and stray current for LAR, a proprietary computer-based simmlation model was used. Basic input data such 2s alignments, tain physical and electrical characteristics, train operating time table, configuration and electrical parameters of the dc, traction power system, rail resistance, railto-earth resistance, and bonding arrangement were fed into the computer mode! to simulate the complete train operations and their effects fon rail potential and therefore stray current. The ‘components of te traction power system are modelled in terms of resistors and current sources, and the Taps prseted athe Annual Conference feat of Corrosion, Ortber 1997, Gatwick, United Kingdom Page?interconnection of these components becomes an electrical circuit, The traction retum circuit is modelled by dividing the track into a number of sections, each section is modelled by a pi-circuit with a series resistor to model the resistance of the running rails and a shunt resistor to mode! the resistance between the rails and earth (see Figure 4) ‘The computer software models the system as a true network of trains operating concurrently. With each znew time increment, the program updates the location and status of each train and assembles the corresponding, electrical network with trains treated as non-linear loads at various nodes of the electrical network, with specified yoltage-current relationship. The current drawn by 2 fiven train would depend on its propulsion system status and control logic (on whether the train is powering, coasting or braking), and the tain voltage, The tain ‘voltage is dependent on the train's power demand, ‘voltage drop in the electrical network, as well as the location and current demand of other tains. Since the ‘voltage is not known in advance, recursive network solutions are required with train load current adjustments ineach iteration. Each new network solution renders the rode voltages corresponding to the trains’ load currents from the previcus computation cycle, The new voltages from a particular iteration are used to adjust the train currents for the next computation cycle in accordance with the propulsion system status and characteristics. ‘The process is repeated until convergency is established. ‘The train propulsion system current obtained from the solution of the electrical network determines the developed tractive effort. The balance of forces, tractive effort minus resistance-to-motion of the tain, is ‘computed next, The resultant force applied to the weight of the vain determines the train’s acceleration or deceleration rate at that moment of time. The overall process of establishing the status and location of the trains and subsequent solutions of the resulting nor-linear network with variable topology is repeated at regular one second time intervals. A parallel procedure is carried out to record the speed and location of trains of interest as well as various instantaneous values of currents and vvoliages at the trains, substations, and traction current return circuits. “The most effective means of controlling stray currents is insulation of the negative retum running rails from the trackbed and hence earth: For LAR, three basic types of trackform are used: (@) Sonneville trackform as used in the Channel Tunnel and elsewhere is employed for tracks in ‘tunnels and on viaducts. It features a rubber boot ‘which provides a high rail-to-carth resistance which can be as high as 8,000 ohm-km per wack when dry. () For at grade and depot tracks the wackform consists of concrete sleeper on ballast. (© For the Tsing Ma Bridge, which is a cable suspension steel bridge, the zails are insulated from the reinforced steel bearers which act as the support for the running rails, The steel ‘bearers are further supported by secondary insulation on the stel bridge deck, {It must be pointed out that the choice of zackform is not wholly dependent on the need to minimize stray current For the purpose of calculating the rail potential and stray ‘currents, a railto-earth resistance of 100 ohm-km per track wes chosen, The running rails are UIC 60 rails ‘with a ral size of 60 kg/m and a specific resistance of 0.03 ohmm/im per rail. The traction substations are being provided with an earthing mat with an overall resistance Of not exceeding 0.5 ohm relative to the general mass of earth “The salient points ofthe results from the computer studies are summarized below: (@ With a railto-earth resistance of 100 ohm-am per track and with the negative bus of the fraction substation floating relative to earth, the ‘otal stray current discharge is in the order of 10 A for the complete system during wltimate peak hour operation. With the system having ‘2 route length of about 34 km, the stray current will be so widespread and small in magnitude that individual structures will not be significantly affected and therefore stray ‘current is not a concern. The above statement does not in any way suggest that stray current will spread evenly over the entire route Tength. Stray current will concentrate in areas where the raibto-earth resistance is relatively lower, These areas of high concentration of stray current must be avoided as far as possible (©) The introduction of diode earthed system will reduce the effectiveness of the raiHtoearth resistance and result in increase of stay current evel to approximately 40 A. (©) Another study was carried out to investigate the situation when the raikto-earth resistance is reduced to as low as 10 ohm-km per track which represents a practical value atcr the railway has ‘commenced its revenue service, The systemwide ‘stray current will increase 10 about 100 A and 150 A respectively for floating negative and diode earthed arrangement respectively. (@ Dring normal operating conditions, the rail ‘potentials at passenger stations will vary within Paper presented ine Arma! Confrence of fatate of Cororion, October 1997, Gatwick. United Kingdom Page