Railway transport

Accumulator batteries of different types are largely used in railway transport. Firstly, these are starting accumulators and supercapacitors for diesel locomotives which must provide high starting engine current during short time period. Use of electronic separator SWEL-ES together with the above mentioned devices allows considerable reduction of mass (up to 30% according to the type of the accumulator or supercapacitor used) and dimension (and thereby cost) of the accumulator battery, without worsening its energy discharge characteristics.

Secondly, the accumulators are the base for autonomous power supply systems in carriages of long-distance trains. Each carriage has an accumulator battery to provide autonomous power supply of trainboard equipment. Alkaline accumulators with aqueous electrolyte (Ni-Cd) with capacity up to 300 A*h and specific energy capacity till 30 W*h/kg are normally used for this purpose. Such accumulator batteries have several hundred kilograms in weight. Moreover, the charge process of accumulators with aqueous electrolyte up to total capacity is characterized by significant gassing (due to decomposition of water molecule to form hydrogen and oxygen gases) which leads to loss of a certain volume of electrolyte during each accumulator charge/discharge cycle. Therefore it’s necessary to execute regular electrolyte service and refill which are both rather complicated procedures.

Electronic separator SWEL-ES provides 20-50% efficiency rise of Ni-Cd accumulators in case of discharge by high current (up to 3C). Due to that it becomes possible to undercharge accumulators till the voltage that corresponds to 80% of specific capacity.

In fact there’s no gassing during such charge, and in addition the endurance of the accumulator increases significantly.
Thus along with mass-dimension characteristics improvements, the autonomous energy supply systems for carriages may become maintenance-free, that will permit to cut operating costs down dramatically.