A co-simulation approach for real-time transient analysis of electro-thermal system interactions on board of future all-electric ships

This paper presents an approach to performing real-time co-simulation of electro-thermal coupled power systems for aiding the design of future all-electric Navy ships. The goal is to study the transient interactions between the electrical and the thermal sub-systems. The approach utilizes the existing large scale real-time simulation capabilities of electrical systems established at Florida State University on the Real Time Digital Simulator (RTDS) platform in conjunction with real-time simulation models of thermal systems from the University of South Carolina implemented on the Virtual Test Bed (VTB) platform. The paper first briefly discusses methods for linking the RTDS and the VTB models. It then describes the different modes of interactions between the electrical and the thermal subsystems and illustrates them on realistic example cases. A simplified application scenario is analyzed. Initial results clearly illustrate the thermal runaway phenomena as longterm system instability typically not revealed by snapshot type off-line simulations. The paper concludes with an outlook on future steps to improve this approach towards higher system fidelity and level of detail represented in the thermal system.