Advanced Lithium-Ion Battery Simulation Tools Available

CD-adapco today announced the successful completion ofits development project targeting the automotive and lithium ion batteryindustries, enabling faster design and development of advanced electric drivevehicle power systems. This project, which began in August 2011, is co-fundedby the Vehicle Technologies Office in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) andmanaged by DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). This project ispart of the competitive Computer Aided Engineering of electric drive Batteries(CAEBAT) activity launched by DOE in 2010. The initial award of the project wasreported on July 7(th), 2011 and the project team included CD-adapco, BatteryDesign Inc, Johnson Controls Inc and A123.

The methods developed within this program are nowavailable within CD-adapco’s flagship product STAR-CCM+ and also in theapplication specific tool, Battery Design Studio. These solutions provideseamless integration between electrochemists and thermal engineers within thebattery design process. Through linking the flow, thermal and electrochemicalsimulations into one environment, a highly accurate solution can be obtained.The models also span multiple computational domains from systems models tohighly resolved complex 3D models. The image below shows an example of both thethermal and electrochemical results produced for a 12-cell module.

Johnson Control’s Director of Controls & ModellingBrian Sisk commented, “We are pleased to have worked with our partners onthe Department of Energy’s CAEBAT project. CAEBAT has provided us withworld-class capabilities to model the performance and safety of Lithium-ionbatteries. These technologies have helped us design innovative battery systemsand enable new fuel-saving technologies for vehicles.”

Ahmad Pesaran, Energy Storage Group Manager in NREL’sTransportation and Hydrogen Systems Center, added “Continued progressdeveloping and linking physics based models of batteries allows developers anddesigners to better understand the internal behavior of batteries in electricdrive vehicles and explore new designs in a virtual environment, reducing thenumber of prototypes and tests required by a traditional build-break designcycle. The outcome of this project is expected to enable scientists andengineers to further improve the performance, cost, and lifetime of advancedlithium ion batteries in support of the DOE’s EV Everywhere GrandChallenge.”

For information on the CAEBAT activity, visit: http://www.nrel.gov/vehiclesandfuels/energystorage/caebat.html

For more information and to obtain a trial license,contact your local CD-adapco office at www.cd-adapco.com/locations.