Flexible Battery with Coincident Contraction Patterns
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing flexible batteries face issues with cracking and performance deterioration due to insufficient flexibility and repetitive bending, which restricts their application in thin, small, and flexible mobile electronic devices.
Innovation Solution
The development of a flexible battery with patterns on both the exterior material and electrode assembly, where the patterns for contraction and extension are coincident and alternately formed as crest and trough portions, ensuring uniform distribution of the electrolyte and maintaining physical properties even when bent.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a pouch type battery with metallic layer is used to prevent moisture permeation, then moisture protection is improved, but flexibility is deteriorated due to insufficient elastic restoring force and crack formation
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the rigid metallic layer with a flexible resin layer having elastic restoring force. The exterior material consists of an inner resin layer, outer resin layer, and adhesive layers bonding them together, creating a flexible pouch structure that can withstand repeated bending without cracking while maintaining moisture protection through the layered resin construction.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses a composite exterior material structure comprising multiple resin layers (inner and outer resin layers) bonded by adhesive layers. This composite construction combines the moisture barrier properties of resin materials with the flexibility and elastic restoring force of the layered structure, eliminating the need for a metallic layer while maintaining both protection and flexibility.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the battery is made flexible for thin and small devices, then adaptability is improved, but structural stability is deteriorated due to cracking and performance deterioration from repetitive bending
Solution Approach 1:
The flexible exterior material pouch with inner and outer resin layers bonded by adhesive layers provides structural stability through its layered construction. The resin layers have sufficient elastic restoring force to withstand repeated bending, preventing crack formation and maintaining structural integrity while enabling the battery to be adapted to thin and small flexible devices.
3Strength
If patterns are formed on exterior material and electrode assembly, then flexibility is improved by preventing cracks, but manufacturing complexity is increased
Solution Approach 1:
The patterns for contraction and extension are formed on the exterior material and electrode assembly before final assembly. This preliminary formation allows the patterns to be pre-positioned and aligned, reducing the complexity of coordinating pattern formation during final assembly while ensuring the patterns coincide to provide crack prevention during bending.
Solution Approach 2:
The patterns are specifically formed at locations where contraction and extension occur during bending. By concentrating the pattern features at these critical locations rather than uniformly across all surfaces, the manufacturing process is simplified while still providing effective crack prevention where it is most needed.
Data Source
AI summary
A flexible battery is disclosed. The flexible battery can include: an electrode assembly; and an exterior material in which the electrode assembly is encapsulated together with an electrolyte, in which the electrode assembly and the exterior material are formed such that patterns for contraction and extension in a longitudinal direction have the same directionality when the flexible battery is bent. As such, the patterns for contraction and extension in the longitudinal direction are formed on both of the exterior material and the electrode assembly, thereby preventing or minimizing deterioration in the physical properties even though the flexible battery is bent.