SIMULATION OF A TORQUE CONTROL SYSTEM FOR A SHIP WITH AN ELECTRICAL PROPULSION DRIVE

The requirements of the control system for a turbine-electric drive have been investigated. In its simplest form the drive equipment comprises a gas turbine driving a d-c generator which supplies power to a d-c motor which in turn drives the propeller. The resulting control system slaves the motor torque to the reference except when regeneration of power from the drive motor is imminent. In this case the torque references is disabled and the machinery is operated in a regeneration mode until it is safe to reapply the torque reference. The control system development work has been carried out using an analog computer simulation of the ship and its propulsion machinery. Such an approach permitted rapid evaluation of various control concepts and operation of the machinery under various conditions to insure the adequacy of the control.