Through-Pack Battery Fasteners for Dense Cell Stacks
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional battery designs face challenges in packaging and monitoring due to the shape of battery cells, which limits energy density and complicates cell swelling compensation.
Innovation Solution
The use of fasteners that extend through the active region of battery cells, allowing for reduced external structural component thickness while maintaining active material incorporation, and providing access for cell monitoring and thermal management.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If conventional battery cell shapes are used, then packaging efficiency is limited, but changing the shape increases design complexity
Solution Approach 1:
The battery pack is divided into modular units with standardized cell orientations. Cells are segmented into stacks that can be systematically arranged, allowing efficient packaging while maintaining manageable design complexity through repetition of standardized modules.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent utilizes three-dimensional stacking arrangements of battery cells, transitioning from two-dimensional layouts to vertical stacking. This dimensional change maximizes energy density by efficiently utilizing vertical space while maintaining organized, manageable structures through standardized stack configurations.
2Quantity of substance
If external structural components are thickened for structural integrity, then active material volume is reduced, but thinning components compromises structural support
Solution Approach 1:
Fasteners are designed to perform multiple functions simultaneously: providing structural support, enabling electrical connections, and facilitating thermal management. This merging of functions eliminates the need for separate thick structural components, allowing thinner designs that maximize active material volume while maintaining structural integrity.
Solution Approach 2:
The through-pack fasteners serve as universal components that integrate structural, electrical, and thermal management functions. This multi-functionality allows the fastener system to provide comprehensive support while minimizing the volume occupied by non-active components, thereby maximizing active material incorporation.
3Ease of operation
If fasteners extend through the active region, then access for monitoring and thermal management is improved, but manufacturing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Alignment features such as guide holes and positioning structures are incorporated into the cell and stack designs before final assembly. This preliminary preparation of alignment elements simplifies the subsequent insertion of through-pack fasteners, reducing manufacturing complexity despite the enhanced monitoring access provided by the fasteners.
Solution Approach 2:
Alignment features act as intermediary elements that facilitate the integration of through-pack fasteners with battery cells and stacks. These intermediary structures mediate between the monitoring access requirements and manufacturing simplicity, providing automated assembly capability while enabling fastener penetration through the active region for monitoring and thermal management.
Data Source
AI summary
Energy storage devices, battery cells, and batteries of the present technology may include a first circuit board defining a plurality of apertures through the first circuit board. The batteries may include a battery stack overlying the first circuit board and electrically coupled with the first circuit board. The battery stack may include a plurality of battery cells. The battery stack may define a plurality of apertures axially aligned with a corresponding aperture through the first circuit board. The batteries may include a second circuit board that defines a plurality of apertures through the second circuit board. The batteries may include a plurality of fasteners, each fastener extending through a separate channel of the plurality of channels. The batteries may include a plurality of conductive extensions electrically coupling each battery cell of the battery stack with one or more fasteners of the plurality of fasteners.