04.1 - Aerospace Grade Materials, Structural Analysis, Fatigue and Damage Tolerance
MECHANICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF A COMPOSITE STRUCTURAL BATTERY LAMINATE
G. Di Mauro¹, P. Russo, Institute for Polymers, Composites and Biomaterials, C.N.R., Italy; M. Guida¹; ¹University of Naples Federico II – Department of Industrial Eng., Italy
Recently, ambitious targets have been set out in various branches of transportation sector to restrict pollutant emissions and to combat climate change and environmental degradation. In this frame, with specific reference to the aeronautic field, new designs including electric or hybrid-electric powertrains propulsion systems penalize battery characteristics, especially in terms of limited energy and power density performances, in turn imposing an increase of the machine weight. Structural batteries (SB) constitute an interesting technology, with the potential to alleviate such problems. rnIn the literature, structural batteries can be classified into different categories depending on their degree of structural integration. Starting from a side-by-side combination of a structural element and a conventional battery (zero degree of integration) in a fully integrated system, in which the structural element also acts as an energy accumulator, a common classification of structural batteries is based on the integration parameter structural. The class including the integrated thin-film energy storages is not fully considered, as this approach is not expected to yield high enough energy densities for a meaningful contribution to the overall energy needs of an aeronautical vehicle. Furthermore, structural batteries are further divided into two categories: multifunctional structures (or decoupled systems) and multifunctional materials (or coupled systems). In the first case different materials within the structural battery perform a single function (either energy storage or load bearing), however the overall composite is multifunctional, whereas in the latter all materials adopt multiple functions (i.e. energy storage and load bearing). Multifunctional structures are best known as type-I and type-II, whereas multifunctional materials are usually named type-III and type-IV structural batteries. Although higher mass savings are predicted for high