Approach to Scalable Model Development for Navy Shipboard Compatible Modular Multilevel Converters

This paper describes a methodology for developing a scalable metamodel for power conversion equipment that produces size/weight/efficiency and dimensions using a building block to achieve required voltage and power ratings. There are provisions for capturing requirement-based shipboard environmental constraints, such as voltage dielectric standoff, shock/vibration mitigation, accessibility, and thermal management without the use of conservativeness factors. The method is suitable to produce equipment data for the smart ship systems design environment. A multimodule converter that provides the interface between a medium voltage ac generator and the ship medium voltage dc bus(es) is modeled using a reference hardware system as a starting point. Allocations for spacing and support structure impacts which are populated using experiential rules of thumb with the goal of incorporating physics-based methods in the future. The reference system is converted to a shipboard design using wide bandgap 1.7- and 10-kV power semiconductor modules. A study of 6-, 10-, 20-, and 30-kVdc systems is performed. This approach will enable the study under various shipboard power system architectures.