BMS Technologies for Comprehensive Condition Monitoring

Battery system for electric vehicles that allows detecting leaks inside the battery housing to prevent safety issues. The system has a liquid detector in the tray between the housing frame and tray base that connects to the battery bus bar. It monitors the cooling liquid level and tray liquid level, and compares declines vs increases. If the cooling liquid is leaking into the tray, it indicates a problem. This allows detecting cooling liquid leaks inside the housing before they reach the battery cells.

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Battery system for electric aircraft that prevents thermal runaway propagation between modules to avoid total system failure. The system uses thermal barriers that transition to a lower conductivity state when cells exceed a certain temperature. This reduces heat transfer from compromised cells to the shared cooling structure, preventing thermal runaway spread. The barriers transition from a high initial thermal conductivity state to a lower state when cell temperatures exceed a threshold. This prevents thermal runaway propagation between modules by limiting heat transfer from overheated cells. The shared cooling structure is thermally coupled to all modules to dissipate cell heat.

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Detecting thermal runaway of battery cells in electric vehicles to quickly alert occupants of potential fire hazards. The system uses multiple sensing lines to monitor battery voltages. Main lines connect to individual cells to measure their voltages. Auxiliary lines connect to input and output terminals of the battery module. By comparing the sum of cell voltages to the module voltage, abnormalities in cells or main lines can be detected. If the cell sum and module voltages match, all is normal. If they differ, further checks are made. If module voltage is normal, the main lines are faulty. If module voltage is abnormal, the cells have runaway. This rapid detection allows warning occupants before serious damage occurs.

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Detecting thermal events in battery packs of electrified vehicles while accounting for faulty sensors. The method involves flagging temperature readings from sensors as reliable or unreliable based on assessments. If a sensor is flagged reliable, its temperature reading is used to detect thermal events. But if a sensor is flagged unreliable, its temperature reading is ignored. This prevents using inaccurate readings from faulty sensors to falsely trigger thermal event alerts.

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Battery electric vehicle system with improved thermal runaway propagation (TRP) control. The system uses diodes integrated into each battery module to automatically bypass faulty modules during TRP events. This allows the healthy modules to provide power to critical loads like cooling systems and propulsion functions when a module fails open. This prevents total pack failure and enables limited functionality during TRP events. The diodes bypass the faulty module cells while maintaining power to the bus and critical loads.

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Smart battery management system (SBMS) that predicts and prevents battery failures in advance using sensors and machine learning. The SBMS monitors metrics like pressure, temperature, voltage, current, and capacitance from cells. It predicts failures using a trained neural network. If a cell failure is predicted, the SBMS disconnects the cell to prevent damage. This allows load balancing and disconnecting cells before thermal runaway or other failures occur. The SBMS can also provide visual representations of SoH, temperatures, pressures, etc. throughout a pack.

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Battery connector with integrated thermal cutoff to detect overtemperature and overcurrent conditions in battery packs and cells. The connector has a thermal switching device, like a temperature-sensitive resistor, mounted on the connector body and thermally coupled to the battery terminal. If the battery temperature exceeds a threshold, the switching device alters the signal conveyed by the connector to indicate overtemperature. This allows a battery management system to detect and respond to overheating without additional sensors.

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A battery pack design and control method to prevent thermal runaway propagation in electric vehicle battery packs. The battery pack has a case with a cavity containing the battery cells. A spray system is installed inside the case that can be activated in case of a thermal runaway event in one cell. The spray system sprays a fire suppressant into the cavity to extinguish the runaway cell and prevent further propagation. The suppressant is a material with a low melting point that turns into a liquid at the high temperatures encountered during runaway. This helps absorb and dissipate the heat from the runaway cell to contain it. The control method involves monitoring cell temperatures and activating the suppressant spray system if a cell reaches a certain threshold indicating runaway.

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Smart battery system for electric vehicles that uses AI, IoT, and blockchain to monitor, control, and manage rechargeable batteries in real-time. The system connects the battery monitoring module and control module to a smart battery management platform and blockchain network. It extracts battery data, analyzes it, predicts health, renders simulations, and sends control signals. It manages batteries via charging stations and provides features like battery life prediction, thermal management, fault detection, and location services.

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Electrochemical energy storage unit, sensor device and related method for predicting and warning of thermal runaway in Li-ion batteries. The method involves monitoring pressure increases in the battery using a sensor with two repetition rates, one faster than the other. If the faster rate pressure increase exceeds a threshold, it indicates an initial cell issue. If the slower rate pressure increase exceeds a higher threshold, it indicates a spreading thermal runaway. This second event triggers an output signal to the control unit for actions like waking it, warning, relieving pressure, shutting off, or disconnecting the battery.

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A vehicle battery system that can prevent damage from overcharging and cell failures. The system has an overcharge limit device that individually disconnects cells with high pressure. When a cell is disconnected, the controller stops controlling that cell and continues operating the rest. This prevents further overcharging. If multiple cells are disconnected, it stops all cells. This prevents overcharging of remaining cells. It also excludes disconnected cells from balancing and lowers the overall battery output limit.

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A power supply device for electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles, and backup power applications that can inexpensively detect gas discharge from a battery cell. It uses thermal fuses in the gas exhaust path that melt when heated by the discharged gas. This indicates a cell venting problem. The fuses are placed in the gas guide path, avoiding direct exposure to the high-pressure, high-temperature gas. By having multiple fuses in the path, it can differentiate between a fused fuse vs disconnected voltage line. This allows detecting cell venting without unnecessary sensors in normal operation.

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Safety auxiliary system for modular lithium-ion batteries used in underwater vehicles to prevent catastrophic failures and contain thermal runaway. The system uses a refrigerant gas storage container connected to the battery modules. When sensors detect conditions indicating cell overheating, an electrovalve opens to inject the refrigerant gas into the module to quickly cool the cells. This prevents thermal runaway propagation. The system also monitors module sensors and if connection is lost or data indicates fire, it assumes a fire and forcibly injects and exhausts gas to extinguish.

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Power supply device for batteries that reduces thermal propagation (fire spread) between cells and allows adaptability to swelling. The device uses separators made of flexible, heat insulating materials with restoring force. The separators deform when pressed by cells but recover shape to prevent thermal runaway spread. They have mesh structures or coatings to allow air pockets for insulation. This prevents fire propagation between cells while accommodating cell swelling.

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Battery assembly for electric aircraft that prevents thermal runaway propagation and mitigates fire risk. The battery has angled sides to contain the cells, insulation sleeves, and cooling plates between rows. The cooling plates facing the insulation are coated in flame retardant paint to prevent thermal runaway in one cell from spreading to adjacent cells. This helps contain any cell failures and prevent cascading failures.

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Battery enclosure design to improve safety of electric vehicle batteries by preventing chain reactions during thermal runaway events. The enclosure has weakened zones on the walls adjacent to the cells. If a cell enters thermal runaway, the weakened zones guide and release the energy instead of propagating to nearby cells. This containment prevents chain reactions and explosions. The enclosure also has thermal isolation panels to divide the cells into groups.

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Battery pack thermal management system for electric vehicles that uses thermally activated valves to spray coolant into the pack when temperatures exceed a threshold. The valves have a body that allows coolant flow when open and a thermally activated material inside that blocks flow when closed. This prevents coolant leakage until needed. The valves are positioned on the pack perimeter and bias towards it to spray coolant inward. This allows contiguous coolant lines around the pack. The activated valves dispense coolant into modules during overheating events, mitigating thermal runaway.

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Thermal management system for electric vehicles with battery packs that includes an energy recovery mechanism to capture and utilize the heat released during a battery thermal runaway event. The system has a cooling loop with a pump, heat exchanger, and fluid to regulate battery pack temperatures. During normal operation, the pump circulates the fluid through the loop to cool the packs. If a pack enters thermal runaway, the heat accelerates fluid boiling. The steam expands through a turbine to generate power. This recovers some energy from the pack failure while preventing overall power loss.

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A step-by-step prevention and control system for electric vehicle battery packs that actively prevents and suppresses battery failures to improve safety. The system has three prevention stages: diagnosing battery faults, detecting cell thermal runaway, and preventing pack thermal runaway propagation. It uses a main controller to analyze monitoring data and send instructions to execute prevention actions at each stage. This allows targeted, escalating responses to battery issues instead of just reacting to full thermal runaway. The steps can include disconnecting faulty cells, isolating zones, extinguishing fires, and relieving pressure.

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Battery pack design and monitoring technique to prevent sudden battery failure and thermal runaway in high-density battery packs used in electric vehicles, drones, and other high-power devices. The technique involves using infrared sensors to monitor temperature changes within the array of battery cells without requiring individual instrumentation on each cell. The infrared sensors are arranged in a string or mesh configuration that is routed through the battery pack. They detect sudden temperature spikes in individual cells before the overall battery temperature rises, allowing early intervention to prevent thermal runaway and isolate failing cells. This provides more reliable and proactive thermal management compared to spaced sensors or relying on overall pack temperature.

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