Hardware testing on electro-mechanical system

Abstract

The only marine transportation is by boats, ships and vessels and they all share a common thing which is the electrical motor to provide thrust and maneuvered direction for the vessel. Due to environmental concern, reducing pollution and preventing further damage to our mother nature, the tradition mechanical system of the propulsion engine is being transit into an electric hybrid type.

Past studies have shown that motor drive control is part of marine propulsion system for electrical/hybrid ship. The electrical machine is to drive load through mechanical transmission including gears, shafts, couplings etc. The rotating system is not rigidly connected, but rather flexibly coupled so that it may be considered to be a multi spring mass system. The drive train will have torsional oscillation issues when there is a sudden load change which may cause the shaft to be unable to withstand the strong currents resulting in mechanical failure in the propulsion system.

This project focus on researching on mechanical systems and using software applications such as MATLAB, to understand the fundamentals of mechanical theory. The MATLAB simulation uses a simplified spring-mass-damper lumped model to focus on the more dominant factors that affect the drivetrain. Moreover, to keep the simulation as accurate as possible, the designed test bed uses components designed directly from its respective manufacturers. The experiments performed in this project are based on the results, research, and literature studies of the different scholarly articles.