Size and Weight Computation of MVDC Power Equipment in Architectures Developed Using the Smart Ship Systems Design Environment

Abstract

The smart ship systems design (S3D) environment under development is intended to enable users to estimate the size and weight requirements for various devices and subsystems of a naval vessel. This paper continues work done related to the modular multilevel converter (MMC) scaling approach and applies it to other devices of the medium voltage dc (MVdc) portion of the power network. The analysis shown uses a 10 kV baseline ship design within S3D and uses the developed scaling values to calculate the total weight and volume of particular equipment. Comparisons between power densities of the overall MMC system at different MVdc bus voltages and using power electronic building blocks of different ratings are also shown. This provides vital insight that enables S3D users to assess and evaluate different power architectures using metrics such as functionality, mass, and volume among other factors.