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Dinner Workshop*

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30 | 5:30 - 8:30 PM

W1: How to Qualify Your Batteries to Prevent Failures & Thermal Events

Instructor: Vidyu Challa, PhD, Technical Director, DfR Solutions


The rising demand for Internet of things (IoT) and machine-to-machine (M2M) applications makes battery power an absolute necessity. However, reports about lithium-ion batteries exploding and catching fire continue to draw the public’s attention. How do you balance the need for power, size, cost, and time-to-market, while still avoiding being the lead story on the evening news?

Is it enough to qualify a cell manufacturer according to industry standards? The answer is that the majority of compliance-based testing is related to abuse tolerance. However, the vast majority of field failures do not occur under abuse scenarios, but happen under normal operating conditions due to manufacturing flaws or design and system tolerance issues that cause internal shorts. Internal shorts are unfortunately not mitigated by safety electronics.

In this battery workshop, you:

  • Gain an understanding of lithium-ion battery failure mechanisms and the pathway to thermal runaway events
  • Learn about the top causes of battery field failures, and the major areas where you need to have mitigation strategies
  • Learn how cell design plays a critical role in battery safety and reliability, and what you can do from a design perspective to prevent these failures
  • Learn the basic steps in a lithium-ion cell manufacturing process, and the process controls required to ensure cell safety and reliability
  • Learn about the battery management system and its role in system safety
  • Come away with a checklist of things you should do to qualify your cell manufacturer – pass down requirements, trust but verify (design, manufacturing, compliance-based testing, system-level tolerances, application-specific battery testing, battery management system, cell CT scans and teardowns and lastly user education)

Instructor Biography:

Challa_VidyuVidyu Challa, PhD, Technical Director, DfR Solutions

Vidyu Challa is Technical Director at DfR Solutions, where she helps customers prevent battery problems from happening. Dr. Challa works on a range of battery challenges including design reviews, manufacturing audits, supplier qualification and root cause analysis. She spent several years in the battery industry, developing custom battery solutions for IoT and smart medical devices. She obtained a PhD from the University of Maryland, where her work was focused on the reliability of electronic components and components. She has broad-based expertise that includes engineering technology startup experience, product development, R&D and technical consulting. Dr. Challa teaches battery classes at conferences and frequently writes blog articles.


*Separate registration required