This talk delves into the operational insights gained from Battery Management System (BMS) data. It highlights key metrics, data analysis techniques, and their role in monitoring battery performance, ensuring safety, and optimizing system efficiency during real-world operation.4o

​This will explore the principles and techniques for optimising battery performance, safety, and lifespan.

Powering a 30-seat eVTOL aircraft will require MW level power, or in the order of 5000bhp, that is equivalent to five Tesla S Plaid. This poses a huge engineering challenge for the battery and electric propulsion system, to optimise between weight, performance and safety. Cell to pack integration requires the best design to maximise energy density whilst ensuring safe flight if there is battery fire.

As electrification accelerates, understanding battery aging is key to improving safety, performance, and longevity. Electra’s EnPower Cell Design Studio and Cell Digital Twin transform lab data into actionable insights. In this session, we showcase how integrated degradation modeling and automated diagnostics identify aging modes and mitigation strategies. With real-world use cases, we will also demonstrate how these tools deliver predictive insights to optimise design and ensure future-ready energy solutions.

Physics based cell models have gained great significance in recent times due to their ability to predict performance and the limiting processes within a cell under different conditions. However, their accuracy is crucially dependent on the quality of their parameterisation. This research focuses on the microstructure parameters of a P2D model, especially the porosity, and critically examines how it can be determined. A novel method is suggested that is fast, cheap and easy. This method also opens the door to studying the microstructure of electrodes that are formed and aged.

BMS core functions depend on accurate SOX information, using Equivalent Circuit Models (ECM) which mimic real physics. Typically, ECMs are parameterised through physical tests, taking weeks for Begin of Life (BOL) and months for End of Life (EOL) calibration. However, accurate electrochemical models can derive these parameters from virtual tests within hours. This opens up high potential for significantly reducing testing time and efforts in future battery development.

Groups of parallel connected cells are powerful, but their degradation and failure are stealthy. To this end, we present recent findings on the fate of degradation of dissimilar and parallel-connected cells. Our analytical derivation of the internal currents reveals a surprisingly simple condition that is necessary for non-diverging imbalance in pairing dissimilar cells in parallel.

Vents are crucial for battery pack safety, especially under thermal runaway conditions. As battery cell chemistry and pack designs evolve, selecting appropriate venting units becomes increasingly important. The presentation provides an overview of regulatory and technological trends influencing vent design and introduces additional features like gas sensors and hot particle filters.

In this presentation recent changes in the regulatory requirements for safety testing of battery electric vehicles and, where applicable, their batteries are discussed.

Innovative battery diagnostics, key to high performance and safe systems, are emerging across Europe. Our projects explore prototype cells with distributed thermal arrays, fibre-optics, reference electrodes and other for battery optimisation and self-healing. These adaptive methodologies suit various systems and industrial applications. Integrating new monitoring solutions into cells and battery management systems provides unprecedented insights into battery state for characterisation, prototyping, and optimisation.

Aging history and aging related battery degradation mechanisms of battery cells under real conditions effects the mechanical failure behaviour of Li-ion battery cells, e.g. internal short-circuit at a lower deformation level and lower force. Based on previous research, possibilities to describe the battery status related to aging and safety are shown, target oriented artificially aged cells with focus on mechanical degradation for shorten aging procedure is shown, complemented by possibilities of numerical modelling of aging effects to virtually predict the mechanical behaviour of battery cells under mechanical loads.

In this talk, we introduce a methodology that combines aging measurements, intermediate characterisations, and physical aging models, and exemplify it through a case study involving the Molicel INR21700-P50B cell. The underlying idea is to use optimised routines to identify aging physically along the different trajectories of aging tests and to integrate the parameters to simulate the full behaviour of aged cells under all scenarios. This methodology not only enhances the ability to evaluate and understand the underlying processes, but also makes aging prediction possible—physics-based.