What is OpenPowerNet?

OpenPowerNet is a traction power supply and engine simulation software developed by Institut für Bahntechnik GmbH, BO Dresden. OpenPowerNet does the traction Power Supply Calculation in module PSC as well as the Advanced Train Model simulation in module ATM. The operational simulation is done by OpenTrack in co-simulation with the electrical simulation. OpenPowerNet has a retroactive effect to OpenTrack.

OpenPowerNet is developed by Institut für Bahntechnik GmbH, BO Dresden as an in-house tool. Since July 2009 a commercial and since March 2010 a academic license is available. In case you are in need of a traction power supply simulation respective simulation tool please contact us. We provide OpenPowerNet licenses as well as the service to simulate and analyse traction power supply networks.

OpenPowerNet main functionality:

• Calculation of tractive effort for OpenTrack
• Calculation of braking effort and recovered energy for network simulation and analyis
• Advanced Train Model with tractive and braking current limitation, power factor versus voltage, recovery braking, eddy current braking, ...
• Engine model with multiple propulsion systems is available
• Automatic calculation of the magnetic coupling between conductors
• Modelling of station energy storage for stabilisation of line voltage and energy saving
• Modelling of engine energy storage 
• Calculation of short circuit currents along the line
• Calculation of line voltages for constant current engines to analyse the electrical network
• Load flow analysis for AC, 2AC and DC networks
• Energy balance
• Consideration of coasting behaviour of the courses
• Load analysis of equipment
• Touch voltage calculation
• Electromagnetic field calculation and visualisation
• Visualisation of results using the automated analysis of the Analysis Tool
• Automated analysis generates the tables and diagrams in any language

Whats new inVersion 1.3.2?

General:

• New station energy storage for stabilisation of line voltage and energy saving.
• Record all messages during the simulation in the database for later review.
• The failed ATM-PSC iteration is selective for each network. This improves the simulation robustness because the networks with stable iteration are not marked as failed. This is useful if projects contain more than one network.
• Added the ability to simulate distributed engines and respect the different positions of the engines in the electrical network. This is useful for very long trains. Minimum OpenTrack version to use this feature is 1.6.5 (2011-05-24). The train configuration is done in OpenTrack “Trains-Edit” panel using an additional parameter positions in the engines and trailers table.

Excel Analysis:

• Excel analysis uses now ODBC connection without database schema name. This enables the Excel-files to display the results from multiple databases.
• Added the following Excel-Files to analysis menu:
  - Message.xlsx to display the recorded messages from the database. 
  - EngineStorage2.xlsx to compare two engine energy storages.
  - Course.xlsx to analyse courses combining the results of all engines contained in one course. 
  - Course2.xslx to compare two courses.
  - PowerSupplyStorage.xlsx to analyse the new station energy storage.
  - PowerSupplyStorage2.xlsx to compare two new station energy storages.
  - Impedance.xlsx to calculate the impedance between one substation and one engine. Only one engine should run in the simulation otherwise the calculation will be incorrect as the impedance is calculated using the voltage difference between the substation busbar and the pantograph and the pantograph current.
  - ShortCircuitFeeder.xlsx to analyse the short circuit currents by substation feeder.
  - ShortCircuit2Feeders.xlsx to analyse the short circuit currents of two feeders in one substation. 

Analysis Tool:

• Added possibility to save/load selections to/from file.
• Tool now uses presets for creation of Excel charts. Using a customised XML file, which may be defined in setup dialogue, many chart settings and description strings can be modified by the user.
• Added possibility to define decimalSeparator and thousandsSeparator for Excel in preset. The user will be prompted to adjust this per-user global Excel setting manually.
• Show only database connection in selection that allows reading XML file. MyODBC Connector 3.51 can not be used for automatic analysis.
• Set time scope from project file as default instead of time recorded to database.
• Station names with first character "!" in OpenTrack will not be added to line charts.
• Create charts for power output and input TRLPC at power supply and sum of power supplies.
• Consider new engine energy storage in energy calculation.
• Set chart type as default footer in output files.
• Improved automatic chart axis scaling. Minimum and maximum values may also be defined in presets. Axis scale is caught at 0 if not defined.
• Chart Substations/UI_PS: Draw |I_OCS|, |I_Rails| and |I_NF| only for ThreeWindingTrafo, for other power supplies only |I_OCS|. 
• Write messages to information file.
• Display the number of warnings and errors after creation of output files.
• Magnetic field tool renamed to "OpenPowerNet Inline Measurement" as it is now possible to analyse conductor currents between 2 slices.
• Magnetic field: Added possibility to generate output for mean values of magnetic flux density. These mean values are calculated out of the images for each simulation time step at each raster point.
• Magnetic field: A factor can be used e.g. to show mean values for a whole day out of a simulation with duration of 1 h.
• Magnetic field: Use presets for output creation.
• Magnetic field: Default output format is DIN A4 landscape.
• Magnetic field: Image output is created in PDF file which results in better image quality and scalability.
• Magnetic field tool: Default designation is now simulation comment.

GUI:

• Open the analysis Excel files as write protected to keep the prepared files and avoid unmeant changes.
• Use color coding for console messages. 
  - ERROR: red 
  - WARNING: blue 
  - INFO: black
• PSC Viewer indicates now the recording of voltages and currents. Nodes with recorded voltage are light gray and others white. Wires with recorded currents are solid and others dashed.
• PSC Viewer is able to generate the switch states according to a specific simulation time step. The normal state and the actual state will be visible as icon, as tooltip and in the properties view.

ATM:

• Added minimum speed for recovery braking to engine propulsion system in Project-File.
• Give warning in case different maximum recovery voltage per power supply system is configured.
• Improved stability of engine current limitation.
• Improved and faster calculation while using engine energy recovery by new algorithm.

PSC:

• Removed special DC version of PSC as the optimisation is now included in the normal builds.
• Create network matrix in sparse format to use less system memory.
• The condition number of the matrix is now tested and an error occurs in case the matrix is ill conditioned. To solve the problem avoid very small and very big resistances in the network model.
• Now it is possible to set a fixed voltage between two nodes, e.g. 0V for a short circuit. 
• Force the same voltage of rails at engine position in case both rails are modelled. The voltage is forced by adding a fixed voltage of 0V between them.
• Added new energy storage with the ability to model energy saving and voltage stabilisation behaviour.
• Display warning in case equivalent radius is smaller than 1 mm.
• Improved performance for matrix calculation, e.g. time reduced to 5% only for a 8500 nodes network.

Whats new in Version 1.3.1?:

• A specific dongle ID is configurable. This is usefull in case OpenPowerNet user obtain different licenses, e.g. FULL and ACADEMIC.

Whats new in Version 1.3.0?:

General:

• Add energy storage for engines
  - with load models: saver, recovery
  - and unload models: panto_I_max, storage_P_max,  storage_P_aux,  storage_P_traction and  storage_P_traction_ratio.
  - Each engine may have multiple storages. The share of the available or provided energy considered by the storage can be specified for each energy storage.
• Linked files in project file (rstFile, switchStateFile, typedefsFile) may now be defined using relative path to Project-File.
• ACADEMIC license available for academic institutions.

Analysis Tool:

• Added possibility to select output file type Excel or PDF according to license model
• Added button "Autofill row" to selection dialogue for lines. It may be used to automatically make a selection for the visible items according to the selected chart type. The first matching reference item found in list or the reference item of type "Earth" and name "E" of the line will be selected.
• Print header and footer on each output page. 
• Speedup for Excel file creation.
• Data sheets are hidden in output files. This is optional for FULL license.
• Added watermark. This is optional for FULL license.
• Added possibility to add custom footer logo.
• Vehicles: Added columns "eta_Brake", "eta_Brake_Net", "E_AUX_total" and columns for energy storage.
• Added description page for overview tables.

Software Structure:

 

Network Model:

 

 

Substation Model:

 

 

Engine Model: Single Components

 

Engine Model: Mean Efficiency

 

Engine Model: Efficiency Table

 

Engine Energy Storage Load Models:

  

Engine Energy Storage Unload Models:

         

Graphical User Interface

 

Analysis Tool

 

 

Some example results from Analysis Tool

alonge the line

 

 

for a substation

 

 

magnetic field of a line with 3 tracks

 

energy overview

losses overview

 

vehicle overview