Power-Hungry Navy Ships Require New Engine Tech
3/3/2023
By Josh Luckenbaugh
The Navy is looking at a variety of new propulsion systems — from gas turbines to electric engines — that will get surface ships where they need to go, and give them the energy they need to power new weapon systems.
Naval Sea Systems Command released in 2019 the “Naval Power and Energy Systems Technology Development Roadmap,” which provided a strategy for the service to modernize its power and energy systems to meet the changing nature of naval warfare.
As the service introduces “high-power pulsed mission systems” — such as directed energy weapons, electronic warfare capabilities and updated radars — the fleet’s power systems need to advance as well, the roadmap said.
“Legacy power systems found on all existing ships do not possess the inherent electrical ‘inertia’ to withstand the ramp-up/down … or ripple (pulsation) effects of complex power profiles of these advanced mission systems,” Stephen Markle, then-director and program manager of the Electric Ships Office, said in the document.
https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2023/3/3/power-hungry-navy-ships-require--new-engine-tech
