Resumen
Complete and accurate spatial magnetic field description is the premise of effectively assessing the power supply capability of a high-speed railway (HSR). Its evaluation indicators are the current distributions and the integrated impedance of traction network. This paper proposes a spatial magnetic-field description method for the auto-transformer (AT) power supply system. Due to the limitations of previous approaches, all the real loop circuits of the AT system are considered for structuring a loop circuit matrix. At first, different description processes are divided, respectively, into those for the right side and the left side of the load. Then, considering that two types of return conductors exist in an AT system, a certain current ratio deduced in existing studies is introduced. As the introduced current ratio of the left side of the load is approximate, an iterative scheme is adopted. By constantly adjusting current ratio to satisfy a constraint condition of circuit voltages, accurate traction network impedance is obtained. Last, in order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed description method, two real-life experiments in a Chinese HSR line are performed, which indicate that the proposed method can not only directly reflect complete and accurate current distribution, but also deduce the exact traction network integrated impedance.