The overall objective of this paper is to establish a dynamically substructured system (DSS) testing approach for railway vehicle pantographs. In this approach a pilot study quasi-pantograph (QP) is tested within a laboratory environment, where the catenary wire, contact wire and catenary support (abbreviated as 'catenary' in this paper) are modelled as a numerical substructure. This is simulated in real time and in parallel with the operation of the physical substructure, i.e. the QP rig itself. The entire DSS is driven by parametric excitation within the catenary model, whilst the numerical and physical substructures are synchronised at their interface via the DSS control technique of [1]. Simulation and physical experimental investigations of the pilot QP rig, constructed within the Advanced Control and Test Laboratory at the University of Bristol, UK, demonstrate the efficacy of the method when subjected to parametric variations, unknown parameter values and parametric excitation.
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