Power Conversion and Distribution Equipment Metamodels for Dependable Design of Shipboard Integrated Power and Energy Systems

The U.S. Navy is currently challenged to develop new ship designs under compressed schedules. These ship designs must necessarily incorporate emerging technologies for high power energy conversion in order to enable smaller ship designs with a high degree of electrification and next generation electrified weapons. One way this challenge is being addressed is through development of collaborative concurrent design environment that allows for design space exploration across a wide range of implementation options. The most significant challenge is assurance of a dependable power and energy service via the shipboard Integrated Power and Energy System (IPES). The IPES is largely made up of interconnected power conversion and distribution equipment with allocated functionalities in order to meet demanding Quality of Power, Quality of Service and Survivabilty requirements. Feasible IPES implemenations must fit within the within ship hull constraints and must not violate limitations on ship displacement. This paper applies the theory of dependability to the use of scalable metamodels for power conversion and distribution equipment within a a collaborative concurrent design environment to enable total ship set-based design outcomes that result implementable design specifications for procurement of equipment to be used in the final ship implementation. The Module metamodel is designed to scale according to user defined cost objectives along pareto fronts representing the dimensions, weight, losses, reliability and cost of an corresponding optimal design for discrete points within a constrained design space. These attributes will be selectable according to objectives set at the ship system level. This paper also describes how the total ship design environment can be augmented by time-dependent behaviors to enable the assessment of survivability and, potentially, other attributes of a dependable IPES.