Abstract In this paper, a short-circuit fault simulation of a ship’s electrical power system is carried out based on Simulink. According to the power system sketch of the ship, a simulation model is built, initial conditions are set, two-phase short-circuit faults and three-phase short-circuit faults are simulated, and the simulation results are analyzed. The results show that the short-circuit fault has a large impact on both the generator side and the load side, in which the impact on the load side is more serious. At the generator side, the voltage of the corresponding phase drops by about 1/3-1/2, and the current increases by about 1.5 times. At the load side, when a two-phase short circuit occurs, the voltage drops to half of the original one, and when a three-phase short circuit occurs, the voltage drops to 0. The short-circuit current has the largest value at the beginning of the short circuit, then oscillates and decays, and finally stabilizes at about 15 times the normal working current.