As 2017 is coming to a close, we are taking a look at our top viewed blog posts written by the expert engineers and reliability professionals at DfR Solutions.

Along with these blog posts, we have a large selection of resource materials available on electronics reliability, failure mechanisms and failure analysis.

Thank you for subscribing. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

In my conversations with product engineers and designers, I often come across people who feel confident that their lithium-ion batteries are safe because they passed standards-based safety tests.  If that is indeed the case, then why did major global companies experience thermal events even after having passed compliance tests?  And that brings up a bigger question – are standards-based tests such as UL safety tests sufficient to guarantee lithium-ion battery safety?

During my recent webinar, Why Lithium-Ion Batteries Fail and What You Can Do About It, I shared three key points:

1). A sound manufacturing process that yields high quality cells is the first and most important line of defense in battery safety and reliability. Failure to follow proper cell design and manufacturing process controls can put companies at risk for thermal events in their products. 

The race to improve the performance and reliability of batteries is on, from electric vehicles to advances in wearables and mobile devices. In the pursuit of performance and the desire to outpace competitors, manufacturers may be tempted to overlook potential shortfalls. Most notably, Samsung made news when the company halted production of its Galaxy Note 7 and eventually scrapped the entire product after devices caught fire.

In part 1 of this 3-part blog series, we discussed the most important metrics for battery selection. One thing to remember about battery selection is that it is essentially about managing tradeoffs. You trade off some battery metrics in order to gain in others – for example in order to gain power density, you may have to trade off energy density.

In part 1 of this 3-part blog series, we discussed the most important metrics for battery selection. One thing to remember about battery selection is that it is essentially about managing tradeoffs. You trade off one feature in order to gain in another – for example in order to gain power density, you may have to reduce energy density.

Samsung finally released details early this week on the root cause of the Galaxy Note 7 fires and explosions that started to show up in August 2016. You can find details on the story here, but the gist of the matter is – failures and explosions started to show up with batteries from Manufacturer A, soon after the phone started to sell. Samsung provided replacement phones with batteries from Manufacturer B, but the failures and explosions continued (if you are in the battery world you would use the phrase “spontaneous disassembly”). The company had to halt production and eventually scrap the entire product.

The one thing to remember about battery selection is that there is no such thing as a perfect battery that works for every application. Selecting the right battery for your application is about identifying the most important battery metrics and trading these off against others. For instance, if you need a lot of power for your application, cell internal resistance needs to be minimized, and this is often done by increasing electrode surface area. But this also increases inactive components such as current collectors and conductive aid, so energy density is traded off to gain power.