Battery Pack Design
From cell characterization to thermal modeling to pack testing, AllCell has all of the knowledge, skills, experience, and tools required to design your battery. Our team of dedicated engineers spans mechanical, electrical, and chemical engineering as well as computer science and material science disciplines. The battery pack design process typically encompasses the following steps:
Cell Selection, Characterization, and Modeling
The design of every battery pack begins with a thorough analysis to select the ideal lithium-ion cell. AllCell is not a cell manufacturer and is therefore free to select cells from any cell vendor in the world. As lithium-ion technologies constantly improve and the relative costs of competing cell brands change, AllCell monitors market developments, tests new cells, and provides input to customers on cell selection. AllCell maintains a state-of-the-art cell testing lab where cells are characterized to understand performance characteristics, cycle life, and failure modes. A deep understanding of cell performance is a key prerequisite to high quality pack design.
Thermal Modeling
Armed with the results of cell characterization and testing as well as customer duty cycle and battery enclosure constraints, AllCell’s engineers build sophisticated thermal models to predict heat generation and maximum temperature of the cells. During the thermal modeling process, the optimal type, amount, and configuration of PCC™ material is developed, a key input into the pack design process.
Pack Design
Combining the results of cell characterization and thermal modeling, AllCell’s engineering team draws on deep experience designing complete battery packs, including cell layout, current collectors, battery management system (BMS), electrical connectors, mechanical packaging and other features as required.
Rapid Prototyping
AllCell’s facility and processes are ideally suited to rapid prototyping cycles, typically producing alpha builds within weeks for simple packs or a few months for more complex designs. Our dedicated prototyping team is accustomed to frequent design changes and on-the-fly problem solving to ensure the final design meets customer requirements in a painless process.
Certification and Testing
Once a design is frozen, AllCell can support or lead certification and testing, depending on project requirements. In addition to the UN/IATA shipping certification required for every battery pack (typically led by AllCell), our team of engineers has experience supporting CE, EMI, SAE, IEC and UL standards. While more often than not it is the final complete product or system that needs to pass key certifications rather than the battery individually, designing the battery to meet the relevant standards is critical to helping our customers sail through the final certification process.