Quantification of phase and runtime errors in finite difference approximations of railway catenary systems

The numeric simulation of distributed-parameter systems involving wave propagation typically suffers from dispersion errors. This work considers the wave equation and the Euler-Bernoulli beam equations that appear in the modeling and simulation of railway catenary systems. A versatile phase error criterion is developed based on phase/group velocity errors due to a Finite Difference discretization. The error criterion is validated by data measured from simulation test cases including parameter studies. Finally, the validation results are discussed and interpreted for the criterion’s applicability in simulation practice.