A suggestion for space harmonic injection into motor current to reduce propeller vibration

Abstract

Propellers produce fluctuating thrust and torque as they rotate in a non-uniform wake field. They contribute most of the vibration and noise generated by the propeller and can lead to mechanical damage to shafts and bearings. Recently, the demand for electric propulsion ships has increased. As the torque and speed fluctuations are generated in marine propellers, harmonic components in the current and voltage of the propulsion motor occur and lead to increased losses, device degradation, and torque pulsations. In this study, a harmonic injection method is proposed to reduce the impact of motor and mechanical vibration caused by the fluctuating load torque of the propeller. A harmonic component is applied to the current of the motor to generate a motor torque with a different phase of the same magnitude as the variation of the load torque of the motor. In this study, a computational fluid dynamics simulation was performed to obtain the torque of the target vessel, medium range tanker, and a MATLAB Simulink was used to model the motor simulation. It was found that the harmonic injection method can reduce the mechanical torque fluctuation of the motor by 87%.