• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.802-808
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• 2019

DC motors are used extensively on shipboard, including as the ship's winch operating motor, owing to their simple speed control and excellent output torque characteristics. Moreover, they were used as propulsion motors in the early days of electric propulsion ships. However, mechanical rectifiers, such as brushes, used in DC motors have certain disadvantages. Hence, brushless DC (BLDC) motors are increasingly being used instead. While the electrical characteristics of both types of motors are similar, BLDC motors employ electronic rectifying devices, which use semiconductor elements, instead of mechanical rectifying devices. The inverter system for driving conventional BLDC motors uses a two-phase excitation method so that the waveform of the back electromotive force becomes trapezoidal. This causes harmonics and torque ripple in the phase current switching period in which the winding wire through which the current flows is changed. Researchers have studied and presented various methods to reduce the harmonics and torque ripple. This study applies a cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter, which implements a proportional-integral speed current controller algorithm in the driving circuit of the BLDC motor for electric propulsion ships using a power analysis program. The simulation results of the modeled BLDC motor show that the driving method of the proposed BLDC motor improves the voltage waveform of the input side of the motor and remarkably reduces the harmonics and torque ripple compared with the conventional driving method.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.134-145
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• 2021

It is common to optimize the propulsion control system through a so-called tuning process that modifies the parameter values of the propulsion control software during a ship commissioning. However, during this process, if the error of the initial setting value is large, the tuning time may take too long, or the propulsion equipment can be seriously damaged. Therefore, we conducted research on the design of a propulsion controller that applied a Processor lever controller even for inexperienced people with relatively little experience in tuning propulsion control software to be able to reduce the tuning time while protecting the propulsion system. Through simulation, by comparing the execution result of propulsion control lever commands through the PI controller without applying the Processor lever controller. We analyzed the improvement of the Overshoot and propulsion performance. The simulation results showed that the safety of the propulsion system increased because Overshoot of approximately 9.74%, which occurred when the Processor lever function was not applied.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.556-564
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• 2021

This paper presents trends of safety improvement technologies for an electric propulsion system of eco-friendly ships. As an effort to reduce a green house effect, demands for eco-friendly ships have been increased. An energy storage system (ESS) is one of key systems in an eco-friendly ship and a lithium-ion battery generally used in an ESS system due to its high power density and efficiency. However, a lithium-ion battery is considered as one of reasons for ESS fire hazard. Since a fire extinguishing facility is especially limited in the ocean, safety issue in an eco-friendly ship is important. In this paper, recent safety improvement technologies for traction motors, ESS batteries and structures for eco-friendly ships are presented.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.761-770
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• 2019

This paper proposes a hybrid phase windings excitation method for improving the efficiency of a 7-phase brushless DC (BLDC) motor in the electric propulsion system of a ship. The electrical losses of a BLDC motor system depend on the operating region and the number of excited phase windings (2-phase, 4-phase or general 6-phase windings). In this paper the operating region and torque/speed characteristics according to the motor rotation speed and propeller load are analyzed for a number of excitation methods. In addition, it analyzes the electrical losses of the system under each of the excitation methods in the entire operating region of the motor. In every sampling time, the proposed control method calculates the electrical loss of the system for each of the excitation methods and operates a 7-phase BLDC motor by selecting the excitation method that results a decreased electrical loss at the operating speed. The usefulness of the proposed control algorithm is verified through experimental results.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.796-801
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• 2011

The objective of this work presented here was focused on analysis of development trend for the integrated power system of naval vessels to perform the high-power and energy mission load platform. These mission loads are affected by the high level of military technologies, digitalization of the ocean battlefield, high power sensor system for maximization of the ship survivability. All electric power including propulsion power for ship should be controlled by integrated single system in order to carry various high power density weapon system such as Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, Electromagnetic Rail Gun[feasible precision striking at long distance 200NM(370km) or over]. As the analyzing the present state of things, mechanical propulsion system is shifted into hybrid or fully electric propulsion systems to realize integrated power system at the developed countries. Such challenges include reduced dependency on foreign-supplied fossil fuel, increasing demand for installed ship power, controlling life-cycle costs.

• Journal of Ship and Ocean Technology
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.27-33
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• 2002

Recently, the application of the electric propulsion system becomes popular because of its advantage over conventional propulsion. However, the complicated flow mechanism and interaction around the azimuth thruster are not fully understood yet, and the studies on the powering performance characteristics with azimuth/pod thrusters are now in progress. The experimental method developed in KRISO(Korea Research Institute of Ships & Ocean Engineering) is introduced and the results of the powering performance tests, consisting of resistance, self-propulsion and propeller open water tests for a cable layer with two azimuth thrusters are presented. For the analysis of powering performance with azimuth thrusters, it is necessary to evaluate the thrust/drag for components of a thruster unit, Extrapolation results could differ according to the various definitions of the propulsion unit; that is the pod, thruster leg and/or nozzle can be treated as hull appendages or as part of propulsion unit, The powering performances based on several definitions are investigated for this vessel. The results of the measurements for the 3-dimensional velocity distribution on the propeller plane are presented to understand the basis of the difference in propulsion characteristics due to the propeller rotational directions.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.914-921
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• 2022

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has set a goal of reducing ship's carbon dioxide emissions by 70% and greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2050 compared to 2008. Shipowners and shipyards are promoting various R&D activities such as LNG propulsion, ammonia propulsion, electric propulsion, CO₂ capture, and shaft generators as a way to satisfy this problem. The dual shaft generator has the advantage that it can be directly applied to an existing ship through remodeling. In this paper, the total fuel reduction rate that can be obtained by applying the shaft generator to the existing ship was verified through simulation. For this purpose, the size of the medium-sized ship was defined, and the governor, diesel engine, propeller, torque switch, generator for shaft generator, propulsion motor for shaft generator, and ship model were modeled and simulated.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.402-412
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• 2014

This paper proposes a novel electric propulsion system for naval ships, which consists of Active Front End (AFE) converters directly connected to battery Energy Storage Modules (ESMs). Employing the proposed AFE converters with ESMs in the power systems of naval ships can enhance the reliability and quality of the electric power. Furthermore, the fuel-efficiency of the generator can be improved by a higher loading factor of the generator and its prime movers. The proposed AFE configuration does not require an additional dedicated DC/AC converter for the ESMs. Instead of that, the AFE converter itself can control the DC link voltage and the discharging and/or charging of the ESMs. A control scheme to achieve these control objectives is also presented in this paper. The overall power system, including the generators and electrical loads of a naval ship, is implemented by a small scaled Power Hardware-In-the-Loop (PHIL) simulator. Through this experimental setup, the proposed system configuration and the power control strategies are verified. It is shown that the fuel-efficiency and transient dynamics can be improved in the normal and contingency operation modes.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.27 no.7
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• pp.1098-1105
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• 2021

The International Maritime Organization has steadily strengthened environmental regulations on nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxide emitted from marine vessels. Consequently, the demand for electric propulsion vessels based on eco-friendly elements has increased. To this end, research and development has been steadily conducted for various vessels. In electric propulsion systems, a redundancy configuration is typically adopted to increase reliability and facilitate the onboard arrangement. Furthermore, studies have been actively conducted to ensure the safety of electric propulsion systems through the combination with digital twin technology. A digital twin can be used to predict outcomes in advance by implementing real-world equipment or space in a virtual world like twins, integrating real-world information and data with the virtual world, and performing computer simulations of situations that can occur in a real environment. In this study, we perform failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) to validate the electric power management system (PMS) redundancy scheme for the digital twin technology development of electric propulsion vessels. Then, we propose the role and algorithm of PMS as a compensation function for preventing primary and secondary damages caused by a single equipment failure of the PMS and preventing additional damages by analyzing the impact on the entire system under real vessel operating conditions based on the redundancy FMEA suggested for the ship classification and certification. We verified the improvement in propulsion conservation through tests.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.28 no.7
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• pp.1238-1243
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• 2022

The International Maritime Organization is at the forefront of strengthening gas emission regulations for ships globally. The Korean government needs to apply measures to reduce emissions, such as setting a basic roadmap for greenhouse gas reduction. In addition, there is an urgent need to introduce a new efficient propulsion system that can reduce gas emissions. This includes applications to fishing vessels, which account for 90.6% of the greenhouse gas emissions from ships sailing along domestic coasts. In this study, an electric-combined propulsion system applicable to domestic coastal fishing vessels was developed. The target ship to which the electric-combined propulsion system could be applied was selected. A simulation system was constructed using MATLAB/Simulink to compare the expected fuel consumption when applying the developed complex electric propulsion system to the propulsion system mounted on the selected target fishing vessel. Through simulations, the differences in fuel consumption between the mechanical propulsion system and the electric hybrid propulsion system (both when charging and not charging the battery on land) were confirmed. The results show that fuel consumption can be decreased by approximately 13% and 16% when applying the electric-combined propulsion system.