Simulation of Combined Aging Effects for Battery Operated Trains: A Benchmark Case Study on the Line Between Reggio Calabria and Catanzaro

The expected life and reliability of components is a critical aspect for railway applications where the expected life and maintenance intervals of rolling stock are quite demanding issues both in terms of equivalent mileage and duration. For these reasons, when the mileage of the mission is within 100 km, adopted accumulators are based on lithium titanate chemistry, which, despite a relatively low density, ensures a very long operational life both in terms of cycle and time aging. In this work, the authors introduce a benchmark test case, an Italian line between Reggio Calabria and Catanzaro, in which the required autonomy, more than 170 km, involves the usage of high-energy batteries such as LiNMC or LiFePO4 derived from corresponding automotive applications. In this work, the authors propose a simulation model based on IEC 62864-1:2016 to investigate how the combined effect of cycle and time aging should influence in different ways the design of the system and how relatively small interventions such as the partial electrification of a small intermediate section of the line should improve the overall stability and reliability of the performed engineering analysis.