Yet another advanced strategy Tesla has come up with to keep Li battery packs from thermal run away and charge safely and quickly.Danny
Patent Issued for Transient Detection of an Exceptional Charge Event in a Series Connected Battery Element (USPTO 9529048) 1/7/2017 8:04:54 AM EST By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Journal of Engineering -- According to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by VerticalNews journalists, a patent by the inventors LePort, Francisco (San Francisco, CA); Kohn, Scott Ira (Redwood City, CA), filed on November 30, 2012, was published online on December 27, 2016. The assignee for this patent, patent number 9529048, is TESLA MOTORS, INC. (Palo Alto, CA). Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: "The subject matter discussed in the background section should not be assumed to be prior art merely as a result of its mention in the background section. Similarly, a problem mentioned in the background section or associated with the subject matter of the background section should not be assumed to have been previously recognized in the prior art. The subject matter in the background section merely represents different approaches, which in and of themselves may also be inventions. "Battery packs, for purposes of this disclosure, are series-connected battery elements. These elements may, in turn, include a parallel, series, or combination of both, collection of chargeable energy storage cells, usually rechargeable cells. Collectively all these cells store energy for the battery pack. The series-connected battery elements may, in turn be subdivided into collections of modules, each module including one or more series-connected battery element. "In many instances, the battery pack may be treated as a monolithic unit, providing energy for operation. However, to enable such treatment, individual cells, series-elements, and modules are processed in order to achieve a desired average monolithic effect. One particular concern is that at the individual level, the series elements are not the same and store differing amounts of energy and charge/discharge at different rates. These variations are natural and expected. In certain situations, the variations can lead to an exceptional variation, defined herein as an exceptional charge state, in which an individual series element is excessively overcharged or overdischarged (as compared to some threshold). "Overcharge of a lithium-ion battery can lead to thermal runaway, either directly or via increased susceptibility to abuse due to decreased chemical stability. When charging a battery pack which includes more than one series element, an initial imbalance in the state of charge of the series elements can result in overcharge of one or more of the series elements, even when the voltage of the battery pack does not indicate overcharge. There are conventional solutions to mitigate this potential hazard that monitor series element voltages and are in place to ensure balance prior to charging. However, due to the potential severity of exceptional charge events, particularly for overcharge events, additional systems for identifying series element overcharge in a battery pack before the event becomes severe are desired in the event that the voltage monitoring and balancing system malfunctions or may otherwise insufficiently address the exceptional charge event. "What is needed is a system and method for identifying exceptional charge events of series-connected energy storage elements, and responding appropriately to detected exceptional charge events." In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, VerticalNews editors also obtained the inventors' summary information for this patent: "Disclosed is a system and method for identifying and responding to exceptional charge events of series-connected energy storage elements. The following summary of the invention is provided to facilitate an understanding of some of technical features related to detecting to exceptional charge events of series-connected elements and responses thereto, and is not intended to be a full description of the present invention. A full appreciation of the various aspects of the invention can be gained by taking the entire specification, claims, drawings, and abstract as a whole. The present invention is applicable to other implementations in addition to electric vehicles such as stored energy cases providing energy time shifting of renewable energy generation (e.g., solar and wind generators), to other arrangements of series-connected e nergy storage elements, and may be applied to other cell chemistries. "An exceptional charge event detector for an energy storage system having a plurality of series-connected battery elements, including a data acquisition system, coupled to the plurality of series-connected battery elements and determining, for each battery element of the plurality of series-connected battery elements, an associated charge dependent parameter during an operational period of the energy storage system; a controller, coupled to the data acquisition system, establishing a characterization for each battery element of the plurality of series-connected battery elements from the associated charge dependent parameters; wherein the characterization includes one of an exceptional characteristic pattern for the operational period or a normal characteristic pattern for the operational period; and wherein the controller detects an exceptional charge event for a selected one battery element whenever the characterization for the selected one battery element includes an associ ated exceptional characteristic pattern during the operational period. "A rechargeable energy storage system having a plurality of series-connected lithium-ion battery elements, including a voltage measurement and balancing system detecting and reducing voltage imbalances between voltage levels of the plurality of battery elements of the energy storage system wherein the voltage measurement and balancing system uses a first detection modality to determine an existence of a voltage imbalance; and an exceptional charge event detector monitoring the plurality of battery elements for an exceptional charge event using a second detection modality different from the first detection modality. "A computer-implemented method for detecting an exceptional charge event for an energy storage system having a plurality of series-connected battery elements, including a) determining, for each battery element of the plurality of series-connected battery elements, an associated charge dependent parameter during an operational period of the energy storage system; b) establishing a characterization for each battery element of the plurality of series-connected battery elements from the associated charge dependent parameters; wherein the characterization includes one of an exceptional characteristic pattern for the operational period or a normal characteristic pattern for the operational period; and c) detecting an exceptional charge event for a selected one battery element whenever the characterization for the selected one battery element includes an associated exceptional characteristic pattern during the operational period. "Any of the embodiments described herein may be used alone or together with one another in any combination. Inventions encompassed within this specification may also include embodiments that are only partially mentioned or alluded to or are not mentioned or alluded to at all in this brief summary or in the abstract. Although various embodiments of the invention may have been motivated by various deficiencies with the prior art, which may be discussed or alluded to in one or more places in the specification, the embodiments of the invention do not necessarily address any of these deficiencies. In other words, different embodiments of the invention may address different deficiencies that may be discussed in the specification. Some embodiments may only partially address some deficiencies or just one deficiency that may be discussed in the specification, and some embodiments may not address any of these deficiencies. "Other features, benefits, and advantages of the present invention will be apparent upon a review of the present disclosure, including the specification, drawings, and claims." For more information, see this patent: LePort, Francisco; Kohn, Scott Ira. Transient Detection of an Exceptional Charge Event in a Series Connected Battery Element. U.S. Patent Number 9529048, filed November 30, 2012, and published online on December 27, 2016. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=9529048.PN.&OS=PN/9529048RS=PN/9529048 Keywords for this news article include: INC., TESLA MOTORS INC. Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world. Copyright 2017, NewsRx LLC (c) 2017 NewsRx LLC -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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