Lithium Ion Battery Design Calculator Guide

You will never go a day in today's world of portable electronics without getting in contact with a rechargeable lithium-ion battery. Such batteries power your mobile phones, smart watches, tablets, laptops, cars, motorcycles, homes, and aircraft. However, since things are complicated with different voltage and capacity of each cell, we believe that people who design the battery packs should know some basics of lithium ion battery design.

Therefore, this article gives you an overview of how to calculate lithium ion battery capacity, what is lithium ion battery calculator and how to check the design of lithium ion battery.

What Is A Lithium Ion Battery Design Calculator?

A lithium ion battery design calculator is a calculator which is used to determine the capacity of the battery based on the current  either in milliampere ( mA ) or milliampere Hours ( mAh ). A battery or accumulator's capacity is the amount of energy stored in accordance with the particular current value of temperature, charge and discharge and charge or discharge time.

A lithium ion battery design calculator is basically used to calculate a battery's charging and discharge current. It is a measure of what current a battery is charged and discharged to meet its specified capacity for a given power. It is however different for different manufacture of the batteries depending on the life span of the battery.

It is  also an important data for a battery as the energy stored or usable for most batteries depends on the charging or discharge current speed. However, if you discharge in one hour for a given capacity you will have less power than if you discharge in 20 hours, reversely you will store less energy in a battery with a current charge of 100 A for 1 h than with a current charge of 10 A for 10 hours.

How Do You Calculate Lithium Ion Battery Capacity?

Battery life is usually measured based on the current Milliampere (mA) and Milliampere Hours (mAh) battery capacity. Ampere is an electrical element that is used to calculate the current flow to the load or charge. The life or strength of the battery can be determined from the battery input current and the circuit load current. When the load current is low, the battery life will be high and vice versa.

The battery capacity can be calculated mathematically from the following formula:

Battery Life = Battery Capacity in mAh / Load Current in mA* 0.70

The factor of 0.7 allows for external factors that may influence battery life.

Runtime = ( 10* Ampere Hours ) / Watts load

Runtime is the amount of cycles of charge up to the end of useful life of the battery.

It is very important to know the capacity of battery you are using so that you have an idea that when to replace the battery or when to discharge it as it is not very safe to use it when it is at the end of its life. That is why it is calculated and know the capacity of the battery.

How Do You Check The Design Of Lithium Ion Battery?

A battery consists of one or more electrochemical cells (battery cells ) which convert chemical energy into electrical energy ( during discharge ) and electrical energy ( during charging ) into chemical energy. At discharge-charging activities, the form of elements found within a battery and the chemical reactions determine a battery's chemistry. There are various ways to check the design of lithium ion battery. Inherently, lithium-ion chemistry is not safe, so cell choice, manufacturing process, electrical and mechanical battery layout or design of the battery becomes very important to ensuring a safe battery.

Figure 1 shows a simplistic view of a typical lithium-ion rechargeable battery design. This consists of three main battery components: cells, housing, and electronics. This is basically a simple design of a lithium ion battery which is normally used in various electronic gadgets.

The cell is the battery's power source and it comes in various dimensions, shapes, and chemistries. The electronics ' primary objective is to ensure that the cells are used in their safe operating conditions.  The housing provides a structural integrity protection for the cells and the table.

It is also important to know the basic designs used in the batteries which are as follows;

Secondary and primary cells

Although it may not sound like it but the secondary batteries are  used for all hybrid secondary batteries, plug-in and electric vehicles. A primary battery is a battery which can't be recharged and a secondary battery is a battery which can be recharged.

Core, modules, and packs

Hybrid and electric vehicles have a series and parallel high voltage battery pack consisting of individual modules and batteries. A cell is the smallest packed shape that a battery can take and is usually one to six volts in the order. A module is made up of several cells that are usually connected either in series or parallel. Then a battery pack is assembled by attaching modules in series or parallel and in this way the design of lithium ion battery is prepared in a simple way.

Battery Classifications

Not all batteries, even batteries of the same composition, are created equal. The main trade-off in the production of batteries is between energy and power: batteries can either be high-power or high-energy, but not both. Manufacturers often use these classes to identify batteries. Certain specific classifications are High Durability, which means that at the cost of power and energy the chemistry has been changed to provide longer battery life.

Conclusion

Thus, it is concluded that the capacity of lithium ion battery plays an important role in the life of a battery to know the end life of battery. Although its not only one factor, other factors are also important. However, to the main factor to consider in the design of lithium ion battery is its size as the size limitation decides which battery cell to be used.