MPSD - Marine propulsion system design applied to Técnico Solar Boat prototype

Robin Rauterberg Tomaz

Key information

Authors:

Robin Rauterberg Tomaz (Robin Rauterberg Tomaz)

Supervisors:

João Manuel Ribeiro Costa Baltazar (João Manuel Ribeiro Costa Baltazar)

Published in

11/22/2023

Abstract

Since 2015 Técnico Solar Boat (TSB), a student project from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), develops manned competition boats powered exclusively by renewable energies. The project started with solar-powered boats, but nowadays, hydrogen-powered boats are also developed. TSB’s boats are designed to participate in international competitions that take place in Portugal, the Netherlands and Monaco. The main goal of this thesis is to design a propulsion system for TSB’s open sea boats. The system being developed is a unified drive system that encompasses the electric motors and the propellers. The electric motors receive their energy from a hydrogen fuel cell and a supercapacitor which then convert this energy to mechanical rotational energy and are coupled to the propellers, which in turn, produce the necessary thrust for the propulsion of the vessel. Given the characteristics of the vessel in which the system will be implemented, the proposed Marine Propulsion System (MPS) should be as reliable as possible so that the endurance race can be completed safely. The system should also be lightweight. For the optimisation of the MPS a Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used for both the electro-magnetic design of the electric motor and the hydrodynamical design considering the Contra-Rotating Propellers (CRP). Post-optimisation analyses were performed to verify the obtained results and a Three-dimensional (3D) engineering model is presented along with the mechanical design of critical connections, such as shaft splines, bearings, and sealants.