Battery Packs: Electrical
A single battery provides only a small amount of voltage and current.
This may be enough to run a flashlight but moving a bus is going to take a little more power.
This is where the battery pack comes into play.
By combining multiple individual batteries - commonly referred to in this context as cells - we can tailor the output to meet the needs of different applications.
In this first lesson we will look at the electrical design of a battery pack: how battery cells are arranged and connected.
To help develop our understanding of battery packs we are going to go through the process of designing one, using lithium ion cells, for a new battery electric vehicle (BEV).
When designing a battery pack we need to know the electrical requirements of the system.
What are the voltage demands?
What are the capacity requirements?
Voltage
A single lithium ion battery cell can provide about 3.7 volts of electrical potential.
Unfortunately, an electric car needs somewhere in the range of 350 volts to operate.
To increase the output voltage we can wire multiple batteries in series.
Wiring voltage sources in series adds their voltages together.
This means that in order to reach 350 volts we need at least 95 cells in series.
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