The fourth rail transit is an interesting topic to be shared and accessed by the community within that area of expertise. Several ongoing works are currently being conducted especially in the aspects of system technical performances including the rail bracket component and the sensitivity analyses on the various rail designs. Furthermore, the lightning surge study on railway electrification is significant due to the fact that only a handful of publications are available in this regard, especially on the fourth rail transit. For this reason, this paper presents a study on the electrical performance of a fourth rail Direct Current (DC) urban transit affected by an indirect lightning strike. The indirect lightning strike was modelled by means of the Rusck model and the sum of two Heidler functions. The simulations were carried out using the EMTP-RV software which included the performance comparison of polymer-insulated rail brackets, namely the Cast Epoxy (CE), the Cycloaliphatic Epoxy A (CEA), and the Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP) together with the station arresters when subjected by 30 kA (5/80 µs) and 90 kA (9/200 µs) lightning currents. The results obtained demonstrated that the GRP material has been able to slightly lower its induced overvoltage as compared to other materials, especially for the case of 90 kA (9/200 µs), and thus serves better coordination with the station arresters. This improvement has also reflected on the recorded residual voltage and energy absorption capacity of the arrester, respectively.
The demand for composite materials in high-voltage electrical insulation is escalating over the last decades. In the power system, the composite glass-fiber-reinforced polymer has been used as an alternative to wood and steel crossarm structures due to its superior properties. As a composite, the material is susceptible to multi-aging factors, one of which is the electrical stress caused by continuous and temporary overvoltage. In order to achieve a better insulation performance and higher life expectancy, the distribution of the stresses should firstly be studied and understood. This paper focuses on the simulation work to better understand the stress distribution of the polyurethane foam-filled glass-fiber-reinforced polymer crossarm due to the lightning transient injection. A finite-element-based simulation was carried out to investigate the behavior of the electric field and voltage distribution across the sample using an Ansys Maxwell 3D. Electrical stresses at both outer and inner surfaces of the crossarm during the peak of lightning were analyzed. Analyses on the electric field and potential distribution were performed at different parts of the crossarm and correlated to the physical characteristics and common discharge location observed during the experiment. The results of the electric field on the crossarm indicate that both the outer and internal parts of the crossarm were prone to high field stress.