Lithium ion battery was applied to the running of VVVF inverter type railcar. 15kWh of Mn type lithium ion battery was used. The relation between running time and voltage, current and integrating watt was investigated. The running test was also carried out using VVVF inverter type railcar to investigate charge performance due to regenerative energy. Lithium ion battery module was quickly charged for three times at rate of 4.68C by regenerative braking system. It was estimated that the effect of energy saving was about 22% by the charge of lithium ion battery from regenerative energy

OGIHARA, Takashi

YAMANAKA, Shigenobu

Community Repository of Fukui

 
 
Letter  
 
Running Test of VVVF Inverter Type Railcar Using Lithium Ion Battery  
 
Takashi Ogihara*  Member 
       Shigenobu Yamanaka*  Non-Member 
 
Lithium ion battery was applied to the running of VVVF inverter type railcar. 15kWh of Mn type lithium ion battery was used. 
The relation between running time and voltage, current and integrating watt was investigated. The running test was also carried 
out using VVVF inverter type railcar to investigate charge performance due to regenerative energy. Lithium ion battery module 
was quickly charged for three times at rate of 4.68C by regenerative braking system. It was estimated that the effect of energy 
saving was about 22% by the charge of lithium ion battery from regenerative energy.   
   
Keywords : lithium ion battery, tramcar, contactwire-less, energy-saving, regeneration energy  
 
1. Introduction 
Recently, the rechargeable battery and fuel cell have been 
applied on the running of contact-wireless type of railcar(1),(2). 
Lithium ion battery is expected as the driving source of it because 
of highest energy density and power density among the 
rechargeable. Some following advantages of contact-wireless type 
railcar with lthium ion batteries are expected. (1) the townscape is 
improved and the maintenance cost of overhead contact wire is 
reduced. (2) it is possible to utilize as an emergency power source 
in the overhead contact wire supply failure by disaster and 
accident. (3) the discharge of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides and 
sulfur oxides can be drastically reduced compared with dieselcar. 
(4) the energy-saving effect for running of railcar is improved by 
charging regenerative energy with rechargeable batteries. 
We have been tried the running test of DC 600V type railcar by 
using large Mn type lithium ion battery in the business line of 
Echizen railway and Fukui railway(3),(4). The running performance 
and energy-saving effect of railcar were discussed. It was found 
that the running performance of railcar with lithium ion battery 
was equal to that of contact-wire type railcar and the mileage was 
improved. Now, new VVVF (Variable Voltage Variable 
Frequency) inverter type railcars use the regenerative brake which 
the kinetic energy of railcar converts to electricity that is fed back 
into contact-wire. However, the regenerative braking loses its 
effectiveness when there are no other railcars running nearby that 
railcar immediately use the regenerated electricity.  
VVVF inverter has been used in the new railcar to raise the 
energy saving in the running. However, it was well-known that the 
loss of regenerative energy often occurred because the 
regenerative energy was not charged to other railcar which ran 
nearby. To solve the problem, it is considered that the use of 
lithium ion battery is effective for the charge of regenerative 
energy.   
In this work, the energy-saving effect for the running of railcar 
was investigated using by VVVF 600V type railcar in which the 
regenerative energy is charged by the lithium ion battery. In this 
paper, the energy-saving effect by charging regenerative energy 
with lithium ion battery was described. The performance of railcar 
run on a large lithium ion battery is also described.  
2. Results and discussion 
2.1 Lithium ion battery   Homogeneous aluminum 
doped lithium manganate (LiAl0.05Mn1.95O4) cathode materials 
were large produced by aerosol process(5) (The flame type spray 
pyrolysis equipment, ChugaiRo Co., Ltd.) using spray pyrolysis 
technique. The mixture of hard carbon and graphite (1:1) were 
used as an anode. Micro porous polypropylene sheet was used as a 
separator. 1 mol/dm3 LiPF6 in EC/DME was used as the 
electrolyte. Laminate sheet type lithium ion cell was assembled in 
a globe box under an argon atmosphere. The discharge capacity of 
lithium manganate cathode was 90mAh/g at 5C and 90% of its 
discharge capacity was kept after 1000th cycle at 5C. The energy 
and power density of laminate sheet type lithium ion cell were 
about 100Wh/kg and 2,000W/kg, respectively. Lithium ion battery 
submodule (200mm x 80mm x 700mm, 10kg) was consisted of 36 
lithium ion cells, in which 4 cells connected in 9 series were 
connected in parallel. The aluminum case was used for the cooling 
 (a)                    (b) 
Fig. 1. 15kWh lithium ion battery module (a) and railcar uesd (b) 
Table 1．Specification of lithium ion battery module 
 Average output voltage : 620V 
 Operation voltage range : 480-660V 
Capacity : 32Ah 
Weight : 180kg 
 * Graduate School of Fiber Amenity Engineering, University of Fukui. 
3-9-1, Bunkyo, Fukui-shi, Fukui 910-8507 
 1 
 of submodule during the charge and discharge. 
0 100 200 300 400 500
0
20
40
60
80
0
1
2
3
4
5
Sp
ee
d 
/ k
m
/h
r
In
te
gr
at
in
g 
w
at
t /
 k
W
h
Running time / sec
Lithium ion
battery
Contact-wireSpeed
 
 
Fig. 3. Relation between running time and speed, integrating watt
2.2 Performance of railcar   Figure 1 shows the 
photograph of the 15kWh lithium ion battery module (a) and 
railcar used (b). Lithium ion battery module had a weight of 180kg 
which was consisted of eighteen lithium ion battery submodules. 
Overcharge and overdisarge protection circuit were installed at all 
submodules in order to ensure the safety. Lithium ion battery 
module was mounted on railcar (Nippon syaryo moha 800, VVVF 
600V). The weight of raicar was about 25t. The module was fixed 
in the wood rack in order to stand the vibration in the running. 
Table 1 shows the specification of the module. The output voltage 
range of the module was from 480 to 660V. Average output 
voltage was about 620V. The running performance was examined 
at Fukubu business line (1.5km) in Fukui railway. The change of 
voltage, current and temperature of modules during running was 
incorporated in personal computer through the data logger. 
Figure 2 shows the relation between running time and voltage, 
current and temperature after the running of VVVF type railcar 
with lithium ion battery. VVVF type railcar ran for 1.5km, while 
the power running, coasting and stopping were repeated in three 
times. A current of 300A flowed to lithium ion battery and the 
voltage was dropped when the railcar was quickly accelerated. 
When the current decreased down to about 200A, the rapid speed 
down was tried by using regenerative brake from 50km/hr. The 
current of about -150A was obtained as regenerative energy. This 
suggested that 150A of regenerative energy was quickly charged 
to lithium ion battery by the regenerative brake. This means that 
lithium ion battery is charged at rate of 4.68C because 1C is 
equivalent to 32A. The temperature of module increased from 17 
to 25°C. It was found that the safety of module could be 
maintained if the railcar was only uesd for the running of few km.  
Figure 3 shows the change of speed and integrating watt after 
the running of VVVF type railcar by lithium ion battery and 
contact-wire. The maximum speed of 60km/hr was achieved in 
this work when VVVF type railcar was only derived by lithium 
ion battery. The integrating watt of lithium ion battery was 
2.54kWh when VVVF type railcar ran for 1.5km while it 
repeatedly decelerated from 50km/hr by the regenerative brake. 
On the other hand, the electric power of 3.24kWh was consumed 
without lithium ion battery for the running of 1.5km. It was found 
that the energy-saving effect was about 22%.  
3. Conclusion  
The running test of VVVF type railcar was carried out by using 
Mn type lithium ion battery of 15kWh in the business line of 
Fukui railway. 150A of regenerative energy was charged to 
lithium ion battery by using regenerative brake. It was clear that 
22% of mileage was improved when the regenerative energy was 
charged by lithium ion battery during the running. It was also 
found that the running performance of VVVF type railcar with 
lithium ion battery was equivalent to that of railcar which the 
electric power was supplied from contact-wire.  
Acknowledgement 
This work was supported by New Energy and Industrial 
Technology Development Organization. 
 
References 
(1) H.Sameshima,  M.Ogasa cnd  T.Yámamoto : “On-board 
Characteristics of Rechargeable Lithium Ion Battery for 
Improving Energy Regenerative Efficiency”, RTRI REPORT, 
Vol.18, No.15, pp.29-34 (2004) 
(2) M.Ogasa and Y.Taguchi : “Recent Reserches of Contactwére-less 
Tram”, Railway Reseach Review, Vol.63, No.11, pp.12-15 (2006) 
(3)  H.Ozawa and T.Ogihara : “Running Test of Contactwire-less 
Tramcar Using Lithium Ion Battery”, IEEJ Transactions on 
Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Vol.3, pp.360 – 362 (2008) 
(4)  H.Ozawa, T.Ogihara, H.Ozawa and T.Ookawa, “Development and 
Characterization of Railcar Using Mn type of Lithium Ion 
Battery”, Electrochemistry, Vol.76, pp.184-186 (2008) 
(5)  I.Mukoyama, K.Myojin, T.Ogihara, N.Ogata, M.Uede, H.Ozawa 
and K.Ozawa : “Large-Scale Synthesis and Electrochemical 
Properties of LiAlXMn2-XO4 Powders by Internal Combustion Type 
Spray Pyrolysis Apparatus Using Gas Burner”, Electroceramics in 
Japan, Vol.9, pp.251-254 (2006) 
0 100 200 300 400 500
-200
0
200
400
600
800
0
10
20
30
40
Cu
rr
en
t /
 A
 V
ol
ta
ge
 / 
V
Te
m
pe
ra
tu
re
 / 
℃
Running time / sec
Voltage
Current
Temperature
Fig. 2. Relation between running time and voltage,  
current, temperature  
 
Takashi Ogihara    (member) was born in Japan on 1961. 
He received a D.C. degree from the Department of Inorganic 
Materials, Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1989. He is  
professor of the fiber amenity engineering course at the 
Graduate School of the University of Fukui.  
 
 
 
 
Shigenobu Yamanaka   (non-menber) was born in Japan 
1966. He received a D.C. degree from the Department of 
Materials and Life Science, Kyoto Institute of Technology in 
1993. He is director of CNP at Daiken Chemical.  
 2  


Running Test of VVVF Inverter Type Railcar Using Lithium Ion Battery

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