The Office of Naval Research has awarded a contract to the Power Systems Group (PSG) of L-3 Communications' SPD Technologies division for development and production of an advanced propulsion motor drive that is expected to reduce dramatically the electrical noise, or harmonics, of shipboard propulsion systems. The drive, company and Navy officials say, will increase system efficiency while reducing weight and cost and exploiting breakthroughs in commercial technology.
The new drive work will demonstrate the use of power components and control software that PSG says could provide a "transformational" design solution for new surface ships, possibly beginning with the next-generation DD(X) destroyer, which is planned as the Navy's first combatant to be built with an integrated electric drive power-systems architecture.
PSG is a longtime builder of power devices for Navy surface ships and submarines. Today, the company is the primary supplier of software-controlled static automated bus transfer switches, which transfer critical ship systems from primary to auxiliary power sources in the event of failures.
The company also provided power conversion modules for the Navy's integrated electric power test site in Philadelphia, run by the Naval Surface Warfare Center's Carderock division. The test site is evaluating integrated power architectures and components that could be adopted by Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, prime contractor for the DD(X). The Philadelphia site now includes power conversion modules built by General Atomics and DRS Technologies.
PSG was set in mid-September to start phase one of the quiet motor drive program, which will begin with modeling and simulation of the methodology for generating the drive waveform. This first phase is expected to take 14 to 16 months. In a second phase, also to last about 16 months, the company will build a full-scale model that will be tested by driving a motor developed by the Office of Naval Research, either at Florida State University or at the Philadelphia test site.
The PSG team includes the Naval Postgraduate School, which is evaluating available power devices that could be used with the drive; the University of Wisconsin, for modeling and simulation; Naval Sea Systems Command's power conversion program office; and the Carderock group.
The Office of Naval Research's power-electronic building blocks program, initiated in 1994 in collaboration with the Department of Energy and a number of private companies, developed software-controlled power devices, including converters, inverters, and rectifiers, among others, that convert and refine power generated by shipboard prime movers-gas turbines, diesels, and nuclear reactors-for use for both propulsion and all other ship systems.
The power-electronic building blocks effort, managed under the Office of Naval Research's dual-use program, developed "smart" power devices now in wide use commercially for a number of power-generation applications. The availability of new power-control products on the market, officials say, reflects the success of the long-term science and technology effort.
PSG points out that a key element of its program will be selecting the commercially built devices based on power-electronic building blocks that will be inserted in the drive.
The current effort, officials say, integrates mature power devices and components that emerged from the earlier science and technology program. The Coast Guard's new Great Lakes icebreaker program, which will replace the 60-year-old Mackinaw (WAGB-83) in 2006, will use a motor drive built by ABB Ltd. that incorporates power-electronic building blocks devices.
Through a separate Office of Naval Research-sponsored effort, DRS Technologies is developing a high-speed generator that will be integrated with the PSG drive as well as a turbine for the integrated system. DRS, at its Hudson, Massachusetts, facility, is developing the power systems architecture, including the permanent-magnet motor, that is planned for the first-build DD(X).
The work may dovetail fortuitously with progress on the lead-ship DD(X), which Northrop Grumman is scheduled to deliver to the Navy in 2011. In mid-August, the company asked its power-components vendors for pricing and technical data on fully qualified hardware for the program. At the same time, the shipbuilder also asked the suppliers for their ideas on reducing weight, space, and cost.