Accelerated calendar and pulse life analysis of lithium-ion cells

Sandia National Laboratories has been studying calendar and pulse discharge life of prototype high-power lithium-ion cells as part of the Advanced Technology Development (ATD) Program. One of the goals of ATD is to establish validated accelerated life test protocols for lithium-ion cells in the hybrid electric vehicle application. In order to accomplish this, aging experiments have been conducted on 18650-size cells containing a chemistry representative of these high-power designs. Loss of power and capacity are accompanied by increasing interfacial impedance at the cathode. These relationships are consistent within a given state-of-charge (SOC) over the range of storage temperatures and times. Inductive models have been used to construct detailed descriptions of the relationships between power fade and aging time and to relate power fade, capacity loss and impedance rise. These models can interpolate among the different experimental conditions and can also describe the error surface when fitting life prediction models to the data.