Dr Ross Drummond - University of Sheffield

As we transition away from polluting fossil fuels and move towards clean energy and electrification, the need for new advances in Li-ion battery technology is becoming increasingly apparent. For many emerging applications such as electric vehicles and aircraft, large packs of lithium-ion batteries (often containing thousands of cells) are being used as power supplies, a radical departure from the fossil fuel powered vehicles which dominated the previous century. Several challenges appear when working with large battery packs, such as handling the data complexity of the pack's battery management system and in choosing effective pack designs. For any electric vehicle, designers have to make important decisions on how to optimise the pack configuration so as to ensure that it is energy dense but also safe in the sense that any fires caused by a cell short circuit are not catastrophic. Unfortunately, there is a trade-off between the energy density of the cell and its safety, and this trade-off has to be carefully managed. 

To address this issue, this fellowship will deliver a new pack modelling tool to quantify the trade-offs between pack energy, power and, crucially, safety.