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Research Projects >> Other >> Current Research Project >> Advanced Lead Acid Battery Development for Military Vehicles
New and evolving battery, fuel cell, and electric drive technologies could be combined to improve the performance of military vehicles. These hybrid electric power trains have many potential benefits, including high torque at low speeds, elimination of transmissions, high fuel economy, quiet or stealth operation (i.e. both noise and heat), and the ability to provide power at a remote location easily and quickly. The biggest problem with these power trains for military vehicles is that the components have not been specifically developed for theses applications and are therefore too expensive or do not provide adequate performance. Advances in battery and electric drive technology could significantly improves the cost and the performance, both energy and power, of these power trains. We are proposing to both develop and demonstrate new battery and electric drive technologies for military vehicles. The proposed work will process in three phases. In the first phase, an advanced battery having a number of new attributes will be designed and fabricated. These design attributes would include a horizontal plate configuration where multiple, inter-cell conductors are used to connect thin, multiple-lug plates. We will also use mechanical compression to improve cycle life. The cell design will use standard pastes and conventional separators. This Phase I battery will have improved energy and power performance over present batteries and will represent a first iteration toward achieving the more dramatic improvements expected with the Phase II battery. In Phase II, we will develop a high-performance sealed lead acid battery. This Phase II battery will use the same topology as the Phase I battery, but will use paste additives and special separator materials and designs to achieve high performance and long life. These high-performance cells will be designed to replace the cells in the Phase I modules so that no additional tooling will be needed for this battery. We anticipate a two-fold improvement in the energy performance of the Phase II battery over conventional, state-of-the-art (SOA) batteries. The Phase II battery development will run concurrently with Phase I. Glass Microspheres (paste additive) 
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