Institutionalizing the Electric Warship

Abstract

The Navy has invested a considerable amount of resources in developing Electric Warship technology in the past twenty years. We have witnessed a number of early technology demonstrations as well as incorporation of Integrated Power System (IPS) technology into ship programs such as LHD 8, T-AKE, DD(X), and CVN 21. Although these early adopters have paved the way for establishing the practice of electric warship design, we are now at a critical point in time for institutionalizing the electric warship. A technology is institutionalized when the following activities have occurred: ▪ Establish a common architecture and interfaces. ▪ Establish a common design processes. ▪ Incorporate the architecture and design processes into design tools. ▪ Codify the practice in government or industry specifications, standards, and guides. ▪ Teach the architecture and design process as part of a typical engineering school curriculum. This article reviews the progress in electric warship technology, describes progress (including ongoing efforts) in institutionalization, and highlights critical near term shortcomings. Some of the shortcomings in design processes and tools include: ▪ Undefined (in authoritative documentation) concepts such as zonal survivability and quality of service. ▪ Obsolete requirement terms such as “sustained speed” and “endurance speed/range” ▪ Conflicting design practices for propulsion and ship service prime mover sizing. ▪ Customized system protection strategies for different classes of ships. ▪ Ambiguous methods for the sizing of zonal distribution system components. ▪ Lack of integration of IPS design algorithms into ship concept tools such as ASSET. ▪ Lack of knowledge as to how to effectively use modeling and simulation to make electric plant design decisions for each stage of ship design. Additionally, the article details progress in updating standards and specifications, such as the Naval Vessel Rules and DOD-STD-1399. Finally, efforts to incorporate Electric Warship design into the curriculum at [RA1] traditional Naval Architecture are described.