Development of Safe, Reliable, and Durable Lithium-ion Battery for Naval Aircraft Applications

Yardney will design and develop a lightweight, safe, reliable, and cost-effective aircraft battery with improved thermal design and the use of active cooling techniques. As a novel part of the battery design, Yardney will investigate and implement high performance electrodes using three dimensional (3D) micro-porous current collectors, safer thin metal case cell design, a micro-channel heat pipe thermal control system to collect heat generated inside the battery and then conduct the heat to the outer shell, thus providing direct cooling for the overheated region. The novel design will also prevent heat propagation between the cells with a lightweight aerogel that has low thermal conductivity. Tests of the enhanced cell design will be compared with Yardney"s existing battery, which meets current full aircraft electrical performance requirements. Yardney will work with the University of Arizona, experts in thermal modeling and heat-generation studies in battery electrodes and the battery cells and investigate the most effective thermal design for the 3D electrodes and the battery pack using high performance computing systems.