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Over the past decades, the growth of international cruise tourism has been constant. The forecasts made by the Ships and Maritime Equipment Association indicates an annual growth rate of about 7%, leading to the triplication of global cruise passengers in the future (from 19 million passengers in 2010 to more than 54 million in 2035). To cover the future market needs, roughly six or eight new cruise ship buildings per year are planned until 2031, along with an increase in ship size (up to 8,000 persons accommodated onboard). These two facts have led to a growing interest in the passengers' safety, which has been addressed by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) in 2000, with the launch of an initiative for adequate international safety regulation for large passenger ships. The first issue that emerged from such an initiative was the difficulty in safely evacuating passengers toward lifeboats during emergencies (in particular, during a fire or flooding). The solution proposed by the MSC requires that future passenger ships be designed to increase their intrinsic survivability, exploiting the concept that the ship is its own best lifeboat (thus avoiding abandoning the ship as much as possible). Such a solution was formalized in December 2006 through a package of amendments to regulations dedicated to large passenger ships and published in the 82nd session of the MSC, i.e., the Resolution MSC.216(82), commonly known as safe return to port regulations (SRtP).

Load commutated inverters (LCIs) are still widely used for their robustness and reliability in high-power synchronous motor drives, in either single or multiple three-phase configurations. A restriction to their use in high-speed applications is due to the criticalities of thyristor operation at high switching frequencies. The upper frequency limits of LCIs are usually addressed in the existing literature as something independent of the drive architecture. On the contrary, this paper highlights how the maximum frequency that can be safely attained closely relates to the number of LCIs that are used to supply the synchronous motor. In fact, moving from a single to multiple three-phase arrangements is proved to introduce more stringent frequency constraints due to the mutual interaction between stator windings during commutations. Frequency limits for safe operation of single- and multiple-LCI drives are derived in quantitative terms and experimentally assessed on a 2-MW synchronous motor fed by a couple of LCIs. Practical implications of such limits in the design of high-power high-speed drives are finally discussed.

Split-phase synchronous motors equipped with multiple-stator three-phase windings, each supplied by a load-commutated inverter, play an important role in today's very high power electrical-drive applications. A criticality of these systems is the possibility that commutations occur in different motor windings simultaneously. The resulting electromagnetic transient depends on the magnetic coupling of motor phases among them and with rotor circuits. In this paper, a model to describe this phenomenon is presented along with some dedicated tests, conducted on various split-phase configurations, to assess the model validity.

Dependability has only recently become a unified theory, developing its own taxonomy, lexicon and methods. This newly formed discipline now regroups concepts defined and developed within international rules corpus in different areas of engineering, such as: aerospace, automotive, computing, etc. Applications to marine sector are, at present, partial, lacking in terms of systematic approach and limited in extension. Dependability techniques provide system analysis methods that classify faults, detail consequences with associated risk index. These indications are quintessential in assessing design progress and effectiveness, in discussing issues and consequent modifications required, in quantifying impact of faults in terms of operations, in directing product and documentation development, rendering easier and less conflictual demonstrating specification adherence. Aim of this work is demonstrating dependable design can be obtained with a bearable effort, implanting dependability techniques on an already present ship design substrate, and that dependability techniques may be profitably employed as project management tools.

DC distribution is being considered as an attractive alternative to its traditional AC counterpart in many fields of applications and, in particular, for shipboard power systems. The adoption of a DC distribution network makes it possible and sometimes necessary to radically revise the technology of the generation systems in many regards. Not only frequency-related constraints are removed, allowing for high-speed smaller generators to be used, but new fault-tolerant configurations, involving power electronics, generation control and management too, become feasible as a natural alternative to the traditional arrangement of AC power plants. In this paper some of these new technological scenarios are outlined, referring to state-of-the-art realizations as well as to novel concept designs presently under development and investigation.

A promising solution to improve tomorrow's all-electric ship onboard power system design and performance relies on moving from 50-Hz or 60-Hz AC distribution to a Medium-Voltage DC (MVDC) grid. This paper provides a review of presently-available and under-development technologies for electric generators to be used in perspective MVDC shipboard systems. The inspiring reason for the survey lies in the fact that an MVDC grid design removes the constraints usually imposed on shipboard generation group design and opens the way for a wide variety of non-conventional machine alternatives. In combination of high-speed gas turbines, that can be employed as prime movers, several electric machine topologies, not yet used for ship applications, can be selected to feed MVDC onboard systems. Along with a review of possible generator types suitable for such use, the paper critically reviews some emerging technologies for their fault-tolerance enhancement through conventional and innovative split-phase architectures.

The degree of complexity of Integrated Power Systems (IPS) for All Electric Ships (AESs) points out the need to review the design process from a dependability perspective. This paper suggests the application of dependability concepts and definitions to accomplish to requirements set by recent rules and regulations in the field of threat levels for shipboard electrical equipment. Guidelines about 1) how to properly decompose the IPS into conceptual subsystems and 2) how to apply to analyze them, using the Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) and the Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) are presented and discussed. As a case study, the IPS of a new built large AES is chosen.

Vehicular traction motors are usually designed to operate over a wide speed range and require important flux weakening capabilities at high speeds. This paper presents and innovative design intended to endow an interior permanent magnet (IPM) motor with an intrinsic capability of reducing its own rotor flux at high speeds. The design does not involve any additional current source nor control systems for rotor flux regulation. It relies on a purely mechanical device that establishes a partial magnetic short circuit between rotor permanent magnets. The device is able to self-activate due to centrifugal force when the speed exceeds a given threshold that can be fixed by the designer. The design features of the proposed IPM motor are illustrated in the paper and its static and dynamic performance prediction through finite element analysis (FEA) methods is presented. A prototype construction is presently in progress to experimentally validate the solution.

The paper deals with a direct torque control (DTC) scheme for Induction Motor (IM) drives where flux and torque of the motor are estimated by the IM current model instead of by the voltage model. The scheme is intended to enable operation of the DTC IM drives at zero speed. As a return, its implementation requires the knowledge of speed, rotor time constant and inductive parameters of the motor. In the paper the performance of the proposed scheme is studied for a drive equipped with an incremental encoder and commanded with a constant flux. Using the position information delivered by the encoder, a suitable representation of the current model is formulated that makes the drive operation feasible at true zero speed. Operating with a constant flux command, the variations in the rotor time constant dominate over the other parameters; their effect on the drive behavior is analyzed in steady state founding that the motor flux and torque are deviated from the references of a quantity, which is a function of the torque reference. Experimental results are given to substantiate both the capabilities of the scheme of developing the full torque at a standstill and the theoretical findings on the drive behavior under rotor time constant mismatch.

Steer-by-wire (SbW) systems are candidate to replace the conventional steering equipment in the new generation of vehicles. The task of a SbW system is twofold: turning the steered wheels by tracking the handwheel rotation and providing the driver with a feeling of the steering effort. In this paper, the design of the control scheme for SbW systems is faced. Two schemes are considered: one is derived from the model of conventional steering equipment whilst the other one exploits the features of a SbW system to cope with the interaction of the steered wheels to the road surface. Implementation of the control schemes on a test vehicle is described and experimental results are given.

This paper is concerned with the self-commissioning of rotor-flux-oriented (RFO) induction motor (IM) drives operating at variable flux. A solution is proposed which identifies the magnetization characteristic of the motor by means of one test only. During the test, the motor is kept at standstill with a single-axis supply. Within the same test, the rotor resistance is also identified. The solution is suitable to be implemented in commercial drives, as it makes use of the on-board hardware. The paper starts by reviewing the model of a saturated IM under single-axis excitation. Then the theoretical bases of the solution are set forth and the test is formulated. Afterward, an experimental rig is built around a commercial RFO IM drive and the magnetization characteristic of the motor is identified. Its comparison with data obtained from standard no-load tests with different voltage supplies confirms the validity of the solution.

The estimation of the disturbance torque in a sensorless DC motor drive is carried out by extending the classical observer theory. Three estimation schemes are formulated according to the representation of the disturbance torque and the processing of the observer states. In addition to the disturbance torque, all the schemes deliver an estimation of the motor speed. Steady-state accuracy and dynamics of the schemes are first determined in nominal conditions, identifying the scheme with the best performance. The effects of variations in the motor parameters are then analyzed, with the finding that a proper modeling of the motor makes the steady-state estimation of the disturbance torque insensitive to any variation. As a test, the schemes are applied to a sensorless DC motor drive for both compensating for the disturbance torque and closing the speed loop. The responses obtained with the best-performance scheme are reported. >

The paper deals with an induction motor (IM) speed drive having high performance over a large speed range in the constant torque region. The drive is built up around an outer loop of speed equipped with an incremental encoder and two inner loops of torque and flux implemented in a direct torque control (DTC) scheme. The scheme takes advantage of the available speed to estimate the motor torque and the stator flux magnitude by means of the IM current model. This allows the full exploitation of the drive capabilities even in the low speed range. Furthermore, with a suitable representation of the IM current model, the drive can be operated down up to zero speed. The paper closes by analytically investigating the detuned behaviour of the scheme due to a rotor time constant mismatch. Experimental results substantiate the low-speed capabilities of the scheme and the findings on its detuned behaviour.

The paper presents a technique for selecting the parameters of tuned stabilizers in two diesel-alternator sets in parallel on isolated network. The influence of the fly wheel inertia and of the tun...