Early stage design tool for marine power interconnect systems

The requirements of a power interconnect system, which includes cables or busbars, are necessary to allow a realistic early stage design of an all electric ship. Characteristics such as the volume and weight for these components cannot be overlooked in a power dense all electric ship such as a naval surface combatant. A “Generic Cable Calculator” has been improved upon and implemented within the Smart Ship System Design (S3D) environment implemented by researchers in the Electric Ship Research and Development Consortium. The calculated cable information supports a space reservation algorithm realized by other ESRDC researchers to provide a more rational representation of the power interconnect system in the size range of 50 to 100 MW.