Department staff members—Associate Professors Liliia Overianova and Yevhen Riabov, along with researchers Volodymyr Neshcheret and Andrii Podoliak—participated in the 17th International Scientific Conference “TRANSBALTICA 2026: Transportation Science and Technology,” hosted by the VILNIUS TECH Faculty of Transport Engineering on September 17–18, 2026. They presented a paper titled “Energy-Efficient Control Algorithm for a Multi-Motor Electric Traction Drive of a Diesel Train.”
The researchers investigated methods to improve the energy efficiency of a multi-motor electric traction drive in a diesel train equipped with asynchronous traction motors. For this type of drive, one way to enhance energy efficiency is to adjust the number of active traction motors based on the load. Calculations of power losses in the DEL-02 diesel train’s electric traction drive—conducted across various power ranges and numbers of active motors—confirmed that losses could be reduced by deactivating some of the motors. It was determined that at power levels below one-quarter of the rated value, operating two asynchronous traction motors results in losses that are 32–36% lower than when operating four motors. This reduction in losses increases tractive power by up to 7.4%. In the power range between one-quarter and one-half of the rated value, it is advisable to switch the number of active motors from four during startup to two during steady-speed operation. At power levels exceeding half the rated value, changing the number of operating electric motors has practically no effect on losses in the traction electric drive. The obtained results were used to develop an algorithm for determining the number of operating electric motors in the traction electric drive under study.
