CTMA Project #: 140995
Problem: Modern manufacturing practices conduct battery safety testing in a variety of ways. While these approaches increase battery safety and catch many failures, there are clearly some critical failures that can escape detection until it is too late. Developing maintenance analysis maps will lead to better maintenance and sustainment plans for all types of equipment and will allow for strategic timing for maintenance schedules.
Benefit: Ensuring improved battery life and less required maintenance can reduce the need to carry spare batteries or the need for specialized tools or training to handle this equipment. Commercial maintainers need easy/reliable methods to deactivate these high voltage batteries to ensure safe repair of these vehicles. Similarly, methods to prevent the catastrophic failure of lithium-ion batteries would enable higher sales of electric vehicles, resulting in lower carbon emissions, and improving vehicle safety.
Solution/Approach: By identifying all known and potential failure mechanisms, including fabrication fault, usage, and abuse induced, and comparing this list with the known safety protocols in place to prevent these failures in state-of-the-art cell manufacturing, this project will create a risk analysis map. The use of modeling tools will enable researchers to quickly evaluate and select the most attractive options for de-energizing the battery to reduce the risk to the device user and to the maintainers.
Impact on Warfighter:
- Increase personal safety
- Improve maintenance and sustainment levels
- Reduce costs
- Maintain warfighter readiness and survivability
DOD Participation:
- JIDO
Industry Participation:
- University of Michigan Battery Laboratory
- NCMS
Benefit Area(s):
- Survivability
Focus Area:
- Other
