Tech Briefs Magazine - September 2022 - 41

the size of the particles in the electrode
and more.
Testing each configuration usually
means several months of fully charging
and then fully discharging - or cycling
the battery - 1,000 times to mimic a decade
of use. It is extremely time-consuming
to repeat this test through the huge
number of possible battery designs to
discover the better ones.
" Our approach not only reduces testing
time, but it also automatically generWei
Lu, a U-M professor of mechanical engineering, cycling batteries in the Lu Lab at the George G.
Brown Laboratories building on the North Campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
(Image: Brenda Ahearn, College of Engineering)
ates better designs, " Lu said. " We use
early feedback to discard unpromising
battery configurations rather than cycling
them till the end. This is not a simple
task since a battery configuration
performing mediocrely during early cycles
may do well later on, or vice versa. "
The team has formulated the early-stopping
process systematically and
enabled the system to learn from the
accumulated data to yield new promising
configurations. To get a sizable reduction
in the time and cost, U-M engineers
harnessed the latest in machine
learning to create a system that knows
both when to quit and how to get better
as it goes.
U-M's framework is effective in testing
designs of all battery types, from those
used for decades to run internal combustion
automobiles, to the smaller products
that power our watches and cell
phones. But EV batteries may represent
the most pressing use of the technology.
For more information, contact Kate
McAlpine at
734-647-7087;
umich.edu.
Large Format Li-Ion Calorimeter
The system tests lithium-ion battery cells with capacities over 100Ah.
Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX
I
nnovators at NASA Johnson Space
Center have developed a method to
measure the total and fractional heat response
of large format Li-ion cells (cells
with capacities greater than 100Ah)
when driven into thermal runaway conditions.
The new hardware can handle
up to 40 times the energy yield of a small
format iteration. By understanding the
thermal runaway behavior of larger LiGas
Velocity Sensor
ion cells, engineers can gain insight to
improve the design of both the cell and
battery level. This in turn helps prevent
cell-to-cell propagation during a cell explosion,
reducing both consequence of
failure as well as the likelihood of loss of
hardware or mission.
The Large Format Thermal Runaway
Calorimeter (L-FTRC) implements a
novel basket capture system designed to
Lifting Hoist
Ejecta Bore
Ejecta Mating
Expansion Chamber
Gas Collection and
Characterization System
Cell Chamber and Nail
Pentration Stration
facilitate the direct capture and temperature
measurement of a completely ejected
electrode winding a common occurrence
in a thermal runaway event for cells of this
size. The L-FTRC also makes use of new
strain relief techniques for all associated
instrumentation, improving measurement
reliability. The system provides a gas collection
system capable of capturing the
expelled gases in a manner that provides
the means to analyze the overall volume
of expelled gases, as well as flowrate, temperature,
and chemical composition.
This design enables a novel overall caHousing
and
Insulation
Assembly and DPA Stands
The Large Format Li-Ion Thermal Runaway Calorimeter's portability contributes to an array of applications.
(Image: NASA)
Tech Briefs, September 2022
www.techbriefs.com
pability. Large format Li-ion battery manufacturers
can now benefit from testing
their batteries for aerospace, automotive,
military, and other heavy-duty commercial
applications using this technology.
NASA is actively seeking licensees to
commercialize this technology. Please
contact NASA's Licensing Concierge at
Agency-Patent-Licensing@mail.nasa.gov
or call at 202-358-7432 to initiate licensing
discussions. For more information,
visit https://technology.nasa.gov/patent/
MSC-TOPS-98.
41
kmca@

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Tech Briefs Magazine - September 2022

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