A Novel Integrated Model of Missile and Munition Thermal Batteries

Thermal batteries are the power source of choice for many weapon systems. While thermal batteries offer designers several key advantages, the design and integration of this technology into new applications suffers from two significant impediments. The first is the lack of suitable design tools, and the second is the time-consuming and expensive effort necessary to qualify a new battery design through testing. Both of these factors cause significant lead-time and cost impacts. To address these challenges, Erigo proposes to complete a comprehensive computer model for thermal batteries and to develop the required input property data. A prototype of this code developed in Phase I already provides capabilities that are available in no other modeling package. The completed program will enable detailed mechanical, chemical and thermal simulation of thermal batteries. The proposed development plan leverages on-going thermal battery modeling work at Erigo, as well as the capabilities of a state-of-the-art, commercial, finite element modeling package specifically intended to model phenomena from multiple engineering disciplines