Special Seminar: Mechanical Integrity and Safety of Lithium-ion Batteries Used in Electric Vehicles

Dr Elham Sahraei
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, Volgenau School of Engineering.

Abstract

Lithium-ion batteries have been used extensively in past decades in a variety of applications from portable devices to airplanes and electric vehicles. Battery packages used in electric vehicles experience dynamic loadings, shocks, and large deformations during normal operations as well as in a crash scenario. It is of paramount importance to battery manufacturers and the automotive industry to better understand how cells deform under such loadings and what conditions might damage a cell and lead to failure. Dr. Sahraei’s research is mainly focused on characterizing the mechanical behavior of lithium-ion batteries, including cylindrical, pouch, and prismatic/elliptical cells. In her talk, she will present experimental methods used for detecting onset of short circuit in lithium-ion batteries due to abusive loads. Also, she will present Finite Element models and failure criteria used to predict mechanical abuse deformation and failure in battery components and full cells.

Bio

Elham Sahraei is an assistant professor and Beck Foundation Faculty Fellow at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at George Mason University. She also holds an appointment as a Research Scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Elham Sahraei earned her Ph.D. degree from the George Washington University in 2011, and completed two years of post-doctoral training at the Impact and Crashworthiness Lab at MIT in 2013, where she became a Research Scientist afterwards. She is the co-director of the MIT Battery Consortium and a co-investigator of multiple Ford-MIT Alliance projects and a DOE project with National Renewable Energy Lab on safety of Li-Ion batteries. Besides characterization and modelling of lithium-ion batteries, her expertise includes full-scale vehicle crash analysis, occupant protection, and analysis of roadside safety structures. She is the inventor of “Collision Safety Structure,” a structure for controlled buckling of driver seats that reduces perils of frontal crashes. She is the recipient of several prestigious awards such as SAE Myers award, Stapp student award, and WTS scholarship. She has served as a chair person and plenary speaker for multiple conferences including Battery Safety, Battery Congress, and AMSE IMECE.