THE USE OF COMPUTER-SIMULATION IN THE EVALUATION OF ELECTRIC VEHICLE-BATTERIES

An integrated simulation and testing approach is presented to evaluate batteries for electric vehicle (EV) applications. This new approach c ombines traditional experimental testing with computer simulations to create a cost-effective means to evaluate EV batteries and provide imp ortant information that is difficult or impossible to obtain from pure ly experimental measurements. The present simulators for the lead-acid and nickel-metal hydride (Ni-MH) batteries are developed based on the fundamental principles governing their electrochemical behaviors and are created using an advanced computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techn ique. Computer simulations are validated by experimental data under th e dynamic stress test (DST) procedure for a lead-acid battery module a nd a Ni-MH cell with good agreement. Moreover, computer simulations re veal that the studied lead-acid battery underutilizes the active mater ial by as much as 70% and the MH electrode of the Ni-MH cell is overde signed by about 30% under the simulated EV duty. Therefore, there is g ood potential of increasing the specific energy and reducing the cost if batteries are optimized for EVs using a simulation-based design app roach. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A. Al rights reserved.