Grant: Discovery Launch Supplement

Governments and cities are investing massively in better public transit systems as an incentive for daily travelers to use public transport, with the intent to reduce global carbon footprints and overcome traffic congestion. Meanwhile, a report published in 2021 by the Transportation Research Board highlighted that the problem of electrical arcing events in transit systems has recently been exacerbated by multiple changes to reduce environmental impacts, weight, and cost. These events have important safety implications for passengers and employees, liability implications for manufacturers, suppliers, and transit authorities, and are a source of service interruptions. Furthermore, according to this report, conventional electrical protection systems are not currently designed to protect transit systems against these incidents. More specifically, electrical arcing events occurring in direct current (DC) rail traction systems represent serious fire, smoke, and electrical explosion hazards for workers and passengers; an "electrical explosion" leads to the instantaneous release of high thermal energy, commonly referred to as an "arc flash". While past arc flash incidents reported by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) showed that an arc flash event represents a serious safety hazard in DC traction systems, the risk is not well quantified by scientific and industrial communities, and the efficiency of electrical protection solutions against those events is unclear. Over the next 5 years, my program aims to develop a scientific-based approach for quantifying the risk of an arc flash hazard in DC traction systems, and evaluating to which extent commercially available electrical protections can be used, optimized and improved to protect these systems against arc incidents. To achieve this, we will develop and implement a time-domain simulation platform for accurate and accelerated arc flash calculation in DC traction systems. The platform will then be coupled with an optimization algorithm to automatically optimize arc incident protections. The research program will lead to an innovative approach for optimizing electrical protections using time-domain simulations to reduce the risk of arc flash incidents in DC traction systems. The proposed program also has a high potential to influence the standardization process on arc flash assessment in DC traction systems globally. The outcomes are also expected to be key for guiding researchers, transit authorities, consulting firms, and vehicle and equipment manufacturers on the development and implementation of innovative electrical protection technologies for enhancing public safety.