A self-enclosed drive solution for changing work patterns
The HES880 from ABB could make all the difference for vessels changing their work pattern and needing extra deck kit – whether winches, cranes, LARS or cable-laying units – but find they’ve got no space left for the drive below. As product manager Vesa Kajander explains this simplifies things as “it doesn’t require an additional cabinet or electrical room installation”.
Originally developed for landside HEVs and propulsion for small vessels, its character as a self-enclosed module “also makes sense for smaller mission equipment, the kind that’s sometimes used for offshore installation or distributed systems where space is cramped”, says Daniel Olsson, marine sales manager for Drives in ABB Motion. “For that you might want temporary capabilities just for the duration of the campaign.” And ideally, “you also want it to come in a single, plug and play package”.
Importantly, the drive, available in 350A, 600A or 900A modules, is ruggedized to IP67, “so it could be fitted on or in the base of a crane or other mission equipment without squeezing it into an existing e-room – and with a lot less cabling”, he explains, adding the requirements also extend to boxed kit: “We’ve had a few projects with containerised solutions since these don’t always have the same climate control that you get in the electrical room.” A drive that can cope with damp, salt air, water ingress and so on can really simplify such concepts.
However, where it gets particularly interesting is that with a HES880 in DC-DC configuration you could run the extra kit from some kind of local energy source or hybrid combination, potentially bringing together batteries, supercapacitors and fuel cells with other solutions as yet on the horizon.
Moreover, if utilised with active heave compensated equipment it can be used to regenerate otherwise wasted energy, pushing it back into the local ESS or main bus.
As a result, a ship might be able to expand its power profile.
A lot of work has also gone into making the HES880 not only robust, but as flexible as it can be: one hardware module has the options of three different firmware flavours: a motor/generator inverter, DC/DC converter and supply converter control.
Usefully, good support is also available: remote monitoring and diagnostics allow engineers to resolve issues in real-time and it is backed by the same service network as all ABB marine products.
So, with something that flexible, how easy is it to commission?
The topology should be familiar to anyone acquainted with ABB’s other drives, says Olsson. However tying it into the same family has been “challenging”, admits Kajander: “The main idea has been to use the same software so the interfaces and tools look the same – even though the hardware is very different”.
Those physical differences are significant: the HES880 has been designed from the ground up for a service-free life in extreme conditions “so it’s not just a familiar drive in a more robust box,” underlines Kajander. For example, it’s fully liquid cooled, withstanding -40 to +85°C temperatures even in warm seas and it has 4G continuous vibration and 30G shock tolerance.
When designing for maintenance-free operation in rough environment, “a lot of the work is about intense heavy-duty testing from component level up to complete pilot projects with our partners – that’s one of the most critical processes to ensure it lives up to the high reliability standards expected from all ABB products even in such harsh conditions”, says Olsson.
For the HES880, development required avoiding moving parts such as fans, “and starting with components able to withstand higher temperatures” Kajander explains, as well as paying attention to small, practical details such as using larger PCBs with a greater number of fixing points: these give the assembled drive far better vibration and shock survival.
However the final frontier has been “making it all fit in a very small box” concludes Kajander. The biggest, 675kW module measures just 430mm by 180mm by 525mm.
