Dinner Workshops*

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22 | 6:00 - 9:00 PM

W1: How to Qualify Your Batteries to Prevent Failures & Thermal Events - Detailed Agenda

Instructor: Vidyu Challa, PhD, Consulting Manager, Ansys-DfR Solutions

The rising demand for Internet of things (IoT) and machine-to-machine (M2M) applications makes battery power an absolute necessity. However, reports about lithium-ion batteries exploding and catching fire continue to draw the public’s attention. How do you balance the need for power, size, cost, and time-to-market, while still avoiding being the lead story on the evening news?

Is it enough to qualify a cell manufacturer according to industry standards? The answer is that the majority of compliance-based testing is related to abuse tolerance. However, the vast majority of field failures do not occur under abuse scenarios, but happen under normal operating conditions due to manufacturing flaws or design and system tolerance issues that cause internal shorts. Internal shorts are unfortunately not mitigated by safety electronics.

wednesday, OCTOBER 23 | 6:00 - 9:00 PM

W2: Too Hot to Handle: Key Differences in Thermal Runaway Behavior and Failure Analysis of High Voltage Li-Ion Cells

Instructor: Matthew Glazer, PhD, PE, Managing Engineer, Materials and Corrosion Engineering Practice, Exponent

As higher voltage Li-ion cells become more prevalent in the market, a clearer understanding of these cells’ post thermal runaway signatures is needed for effective failure analysis of events that occur during testing or in the field. In this talk, I will compare the thermal runaway behavior and post thermal runaway electrode morphology between 4.2V and 4.35V lithium-ion cells using both non-destructive and destructive techniques, and key lessons will be discussed to inform investigations of failed cells in the field.

thursday, OCTOBER 24 | 5:30 - 8:30 PM

W3: Active Battery Energy Management Systems & Charging 

Instructors: Sheldon Williamson, PhD, Professor and NSERC Canada Research Chair in Electric Energy Storage Systems for Transportation Electrification, Department of Electrical, Computer and Software Engineering, University of Ontario 

Vinicius Albanas Marcis, Graduate Research Teaching Assistant, University of Ontario Institute of Technology 

This tutorial will give attendees an overview of battery systems design.  More closely it will cover key aspects of successful battery management systems and charging.

*Separate registration required