Key Factors in Battery Design

The total system approach in e-mobility battery system design involves a comprehensive and integrated perspective that encompasses bonding, sealing, thermal management, safety, performance optimization, environmental considerations, manufacturability, and thorough testing. 👉🏼 https://lnkd.in/eDFva3gP ➡️ Battery Pack Integration: The battery pack as a whole, designing and engineering the entire battery system, including modules, cooling systems, electrical connections, and protective enclosures. ➡️ Bonding: Joining of different components within the battery system. This includes the secure attachment of cells to modules, busbars, and other structural elements. Effective bonding ensures mechanical stability and electrical conductivity, reducing the risk of internal short circuits. ➡️ Sealing: Sealing is essential to prevent the ingress of moisture, contaminants, and other environmental factors into the battery pack. Proper sealing helps maintain the integrity of the battery system and prevents corrosion, which can degrade performance and safety over time. ➡️ Thermal Management: Managing heat is crucial for the safe and efficient operation of battery systems. The total system approach involves designing and implementing effective thermal management solutions, such as cooling systems, heat exchangers, and thermal insulation. These systems help maintain optimal operating temperatures and prevent overheating. ➡️ Integration of Components: Components like thermal interface materials, gaskets, seals, and adhesives play a vital role in the overall performance and safety of the battery system. Integrating these components seamlessly into the design is a key aspect of the total system approach. ➡️ Safety Considerations: Safety features such as pressure relief mechanisms, thermal cutoffs, and fault detection systems to minimize the risk of thermal runaway, fires, or other safety incidents. ➡️ Optimization for Performance: Designing the system as a whole allows for optimization of performance parameters, including energy density, power output, and cycle life. Engineers can fine-tune the system to meet specific performance requirements while ensuring safety and reliability. ➡️ Environmental Considerations: The environmental impact of the battery system. This includes the selection of materials that are environmentally friendly and recyclable, as well as minimizing the use of hazardous substances. ➡️ Manufacturability and Scalability: Designing with manufacturability in mind ensures that the battery system can be efficiently produced at scale: Assembly processes, quality control measures, and cost-effective manufacturing techniques. ➡️ Testing and Validation: Rigorous testing and validation processes are integral to the total system approach. It includes various testing procedures to evaluate the performance, safety, and reliability of the entire battery system under different conditions.

🔋 Peukert’s Constant: A 19th-Century Discovery Driving Modern Transportation In 1897, German scientist Wilhelm Peukert made a critical discovery: a battery’s capacity isn’t a fixed number—it depends on how fast you draw power from it. His equation, now known as Peukert’s Law, explains why high-power applications—like starting an engine or powering an electric drivetrain—can drain a battery much faster than expected. This is especially crucial in transportation markets, where battery performance directly impacts reliability, efficiency, and range: 🚢 Marine – Trolling motors, house batteries, and electric propulsion systems all need carefully sized power storage to prevent unexpected depletion. 🚛 Heavy-Duty Trucking – With growing demand for electric and hybrid trucks, understanding discharge rates is essential for maximizing battery life and optimizing long-haul efficiency. 🚗 Automotive – EVs rely on precise battery management to ensure consistent performance across different driving conditions, minimizing range loss under high loads. 🏍️ Powersports – ATVs, UTVs, and motorcycles require lightweight, high-discharge batteries that can handle peak power demands without excessive capacity loss. Peukert’s 19th-century insight remains fundamental to battery selection and system design today. Whether on land, water, or trails, choosing the right battery means factoring in how fast power is used—not just the rated capacity. 🔋⚡ For more visit: https://lnkd.in/gd3SkPZA

🔍 Thermodynamic Factor: The Overlooked Electrolyte Property? When it comes to parameterizing electrolyte properties for lithium-ion batteries, most of us instinctively zero in on electrolyte diffusivity and conductivity. But what about the thermodynamic factor (TDF)? It’s often overlooked, yet it plays a crucial role in battery behavior. ⚡ While many parameter sets default to a TDF value of 1, experimental data reveals that the TDF can reach values as high as 8 at elevated concentrations. Why does this matter? 📊 Running a Doyle-Fuller-Newman (DFN) simulation with TDF=1 versus a concentration-dependent TDF shows a significant impact on the voltage response, and by extension, the Ragone plot. Surprisingly, a higher TDF reduces energy at low C-rates but increases it at higher C-rates. This highlights the importance of incorporating accurate, high-fidelity models to capture these nuanced effects and gain deeper insights into battery performance. 🔋 Using Ionworks to build and PyBaMM to run physics-based models, uncovering these insights has never been easier!

Safety is key to EV batteries, and heat generated by ohmic losses in anode electrode must be minimized. This article shows why the so-called "tabless" design for cylindrical cells format 4680 is so critical to reducing thermal effects. In addition to reducing ohmic losses, it is also critical to ensure uniformity of the area capacity of the electrodes. This is especially important with anodes comprising silicon: non-uniform distribution of the silicon creates "hot spots" where the current density is higher and the N/P ratio may change from the desired specification. OneD Battery Sciences SINANODE process fuses nano-silicon directly inside the pores of EV-grade natural graphite, and thus the uniformity of the silicon in the anode layer does not depend on the mixing of graphite with a silicon additive (uniform mixing of two types of powders is notoriously very difficult). #evbattery

💎 Preventing Battery Recalls: The Power of Rugged Pack Design Battery recalls and user safety are critical concerns in the industry. A frequent statement Electric Goddess hears is, “Our pack design is sealed.” This sentiment brings up a hard truth: many of the designs in the industry are yet to be adequately validated for mass production. The answer to a lasting battery pack is not just in the quality of cells but in the overall resilience of the pack design. ⚖️ The Role of Rugged Packs Rugged battery packs are essential for longevity, safety, and return on investment. Industry-standard certifications are missing the ability to yet qualify packs as shown by the number of battery-related recalls. 🔧 Building Durability into Design It is a common misconception that a rugged pack integrates advanced seal methods and strong casing alone. The considerations for durability include but are not limited to: - Ability to withstand corrosive vapor ingress - Environmental protections on components such as connectors and BMS - Non-destructive manufacturing methods (i.e. avoid thermal welding damage to the cell seal design) - Interconnect busing design that minimizes temperature gradients on the cells and bussing - Avoid dielectric decay through accelerated material stress testing to guide material choices 💼 Success Stories Electric Goddess gives a special thanks to Luke Workman and his experience designing and building the world’s most rugged packs for clients such as Zero Motorcycles, Joby Aviation, AIRBUS, and more that provided real-world experience and time-proven validation for his battery designs. 🌐 A Broader Perspective Our goal goes beyond preventing recalls. It's about enabling next-generation batteries to safely power more demanding applications with peace of mind. We consider the investment from mining, refining, and manufacturing of the cell components to the pack topology and work to minimize waste in the value chain. This includes sharing information, providing design guidance, risk analysis, working with certification teams and defining test protocols, validating materials, and performing due diligence. 🖇️ Save Time, Money, and Resources Collaborate with Electric Goddess on crafting rugged, reliable battery solutions to make your battery packs recall-resistant.

Let’s talk about Li-poly battery failures. 🔥 I  sat down with Steve Murray, founder of Brillouin Consulting and former VP of Electrical and Data Sciences at Exponent, to dig into his battery expertise (amongst other things). He shared his top recommendations for battery design: - Choose proven cell designs - opt for well tested cells with a history of reliability and safety. For instance, Tesla initially succeeded by using legacy cells, whereas novel designs can introduce unforeseen risks. - Design for drop protection - drops cause the internal stacks to shift, rounded designs (like the ones in the Samsung Galaxy Note 7) should be avoided. - Limit user interaction with batteries - failures occur when users attempt to pry or replace cells, consider non-removable designs to limit user access. Watch our full fireside chat in the handbook → https://lnkd.in/gvYvNp_a