The Safety Challenges and Strategies of Using Lithium-ion Batteries

This book by Prof. Michael Pecht presents a comprehensive overview of the safety issues related to lithium-ion batteries. After an introduction explaining the basics of lithium-ion battery technology and the various chemistries used throughout the manufacturing process, the book delves into the design and process of failure models and mechanisms including cell assembly, formation, and electrode preparation processes, discusses the compliance, regulations, and standards of lithium-ion battery manufacture, and reviews how environmental factors such as temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure can affect the durability, performance, and safety of batteries.

The preface to the book details a history of fires and explosion incidents in Lithium-ion batteries.

The book is now available for purchase from Wiley, the publisher.

Failure Analysis of Electronics Short Course

CALCE is offering an intensive 4-day course on Root Cause Failure Analysis of Electronics. The course will introduce a closed-loop methodology for root cause analysis, provide an introduction to physics-of-failure-based reliability concepts, and cover specimen preparation and techniques for imaging, testing, and materials analysis applicable to electronic assemblies, components, and devices. The course comprises a combination of classroom instruction, equipment demonstrations, hands-on laboratory training, and a series of group breakout sessions focused on analyzing a failure case study.

Register Now (only a few seats left)

November 18-21, 2025
For more information, contact Dr. Michael Osterman.

Seminar on Experimental Characterization of Heat Generation Rates of Lithium Ion Batteries

S.-Y. Choe is currently an endowed professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Auburn University. In this talk on November 10 at the University of Maryland, Prof. Choe will present an overview of approaches to lithium-ion battery research, including modeling, experimental and theoretical analysis, and advanced control methods.

CALCE Fall 2025 Reliability Symposium

CALCE successfully held its bi-annual Reliability Science for Electronics Symposium  on October 15, 2025. Day one featured an overview of CALCE research and four technical sessions with members-only presentations spanning solder interconnect reliability, coating durability, Prognostics and Health Management for digital circuits, MLCC selection, and lithium-ion battery safety. Day two launched the 2026 project development process, inviting feedback on proposed projects from CALCE members.

Prof. Damema Agonafer Explores Evaporative Heat for Data Center Cooling

Prof. Damena Agonafer is the Maryland site lead for the refrigerant-focused EARTH Engineering Research Center. His team is testing direct-to-chip evaporative (DCEC) cold plates, demonstrated cooling four Nvidia V100 GPUs simultaneously, to push the limits of data-center thermal performance. Inspired by springtails, they’re developing membranes that confine dielectric fluids for efficient, electronics-safe evaporative cooling. Agonafer’s group also explores using processor “waste heat” to regenerate humidity-control membranes, with applications from data centers to homes, EVs, and industry.

Prof. Siddhartha Das Elected Fellow of American Physical Society

Professor Siddhartha Das of CALCE and the Department of Mechanical Engineering has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS). The fellowship program recognizes exceptional achievements in physics research, pioneering applications of physics, contributions to physics education, and leadership in service to the Society.

CALCE Presentation on Counterfeit Screening at IEEE Conference

Devon Richman, a Ph.D. candidate  at CALCE, presented “Power Spectrum Analysis-Based Counterfeit Screening: A Hardware Comparison.” Key conference topics included the critical role of digital twins, the need and development of next-generation defect detection methods with the move to backside power delivery and superconducting electronics, and how artificial intelligence can be used to improve inspection processes.

CALCE Researchers Present at SMTA International 2025

CALCE researchers presented two papers at the conference. Jonathan Clyde Martin, an MS student presented “Vibration Performance of Low-temperature Tin-Bismuth Based Solders.” Idowu Olajire Olatunji, a PhD student, presented “Board Design Factors for Vibration Durability Testing of Solder Interconnects.” These contributions are part of the US Department of Defense-funded Solder Performance and Reliability Assurance (SPRA) project led by Dr. Michael Osterman, which is delivering a solder-agnostic performance specification and a comprehensive solder handbook for defense applications.

Flip-Chip Microbumps Reliability Study: Enhancing Defect Features of Vibration Signals Using Dual-Drive Adaptive Reweighted Sparse Framework

The effective extraction of weak defect features is crucial to the reliability analysis of flip-chip microbumps. A novel dual-drive adaptive reweighted sparse (DDARS) framework is proposed, which can skillfully realize the time-varying noise suppression and unsupervised feature stabilization of flip-chip vibration signals under large-scale environmental disturbances. Specifically, the compact representation (CR) of patch operators Λ and Λ⁻¹ are defined to segment the high-dimensional data into low-scale time-varying noisy patches. …

An Adaptive Online Diagnosis and Prognosis Approach for Digital Circuits

Failures of digital circuits can cause significant system downtime in industry sectors including manufacturing, telecommunications, transportation, and healthcare. While testing methods are valuable to understand how failures can occur, they do not provide real-time early warnings needed to prevent catastrophic failures or forecast maintenance. This paper develops an adaptive online Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) solution for digital circuits that uses SPICE simulations and laboratory experiments to obtain circuit fault behaviors, while addressing the domain discrepancies between simulations and experimental data. …

Synergistic Role of Bi, Ni, and Pd Alloying in SAC305 for Enhanced IMC Suppression and Superior Thermo-Mechanical Performance

In this study, the effect of dopants on solder joint reliability was investigated by examining the mechanical behavior of solder joints with respect to solder composition; standard Sn-3.0Ag-0.5Cu (SAC305) solder and SAC alloy with bismuth (Bi), nickel (Ni), and palladium (Pd) (SAC-BNP). To analyze the creep behavior, bulk type solders specimens are fabricated, and creep tests are conducted under three temperatures (25, 75, 125 °C) and three stress levels (5, 10, 15 MPa). …

A Fault Mechanism-Guided Interpretable Causal Disentanglement Domain Generalization Detection Method for Typical Faults of Induction Motor

Induction motors are widely used in the industrial field such as electric drive systems for new energy vehicles and synchronous condenser for improving the power factor of the power grid. The motor health condition often influences the operation of the entire mechanical system, so it is necessary to conduct a health assessment on it. …