Incorporating Fault Analysis into Early-Stage Power System Design for All-Electric Naval Vessels

Modern large surface naval vessels' size has significantly increased in the years, due to the need of integrating advanced sensors, platform systems, and the potential integration of directed energy systems (also called DEW). This necessitates a robust electrical power system with enhanced safety, redundancy, and modular design for fault tolerance and future upgradability. To address these challenges, the Power Corridor concept proposes a unified system for electric power distribution, conversion, isolation, and energy storage, offering improved fault tolerance, simplified layout, and reduced costs. The Power Corridor onboard integration can result in various power system topologies, from simple radial to complex zonal distributions, depending on generator, load, and interconnection arrangements. Therefore, fault analysis is crucial for evaluating specific implementations. This paper demonstrates the application of a novel methodology for assessing fault impact on different power system architectures during early design, using an all electric ship with a low voltage direct current (LVDC) Power Corridor as a case study. The work analyzes system connectivity and power shortfall under fault scenarios. The results demonstrate how it is possible to obtain significant information about the relationship between the power system topology and its fault behavior at an early stage design level, which can be useful to drive the vessel design in the later stages.