Yi Wu1,2, Saurabh Saxena2, Yinjiao Xing2, Youren Wang1, Chuan Lit3, Winco K.C. Yung4, and Michael Pecht2,
1College of Automation Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 211106, China
2CALCE, Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20740, USA
2National Research Base of Intelligent Manufacturing Service, Chongqing Technology and Business University, Chongqing 400067, China
2Department of Industrial and System Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
Abstract:
Premature battery drain, swelling and fires/explosions in lithium-ion batteries have caused wide-scale customer concerns, product recalls, and huge financial losses in a wide range of products including smartphones, laptops, e-cigarettes, hoverboards, cars, and commercial aircraft. Most of these problems are caused by defects which are difficult to detect using conventional nondestructive electrical methods and disassembly-based destructive analysis. This paper develops an effective computed tomography (CT)-based nondestructive approach to assess battery quality and identify manufacturing-induced defects and structural deformations in batteries. Several unique case studies from commercial e-cigarette and smartphone applications are presented to show where CT analysis methods work.