Novel Short-Circuit Detection in Li-ion Battery Architectures

Industry and the battery research community don't have accurate and affordable methods to predict catastrophic battery failures. Recently we published a new method of early detection of nascent internal shorts that are precursors to catastrophic failure. This present work was performed to determine the methods short detection capability within battery architectures consisting of two parallel strings with up to four cells in the string. It was found that detection sensitivity is a function of the number of healthy versus compromised cells in the architecture and placement of the measuring device. The method allows one to locate shorted cells without disconnecting cells or loads from the battery architecture.