Seminar Speaker: Jun Xu, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

“Understanding battery safety issues from a multiphysics perspective”

Abstract

Lithium-ion batteries are one of the critical momentums of our current mobile society. With the further development and application of increasingly high energy density batteries and large capacity battery packs in electric vehicles, cellphones, laptops, and large-scale energy storage systems, the consequences of battery safety issues now become significant threats. Internal short circuits (ISCs) and thermal runaways (TRs) are typical battery safety issues where electrochemistry, thermal, and mechanics are strongly coupled. Interdisciplinary endeavors are in pressing need to address these safety issues. In this talk, multiphysics modeling and characterization at both cell level (~10 2 mm) and active particle level (~1 μm) will be highlighted to provide a mechanistic understanding of the nature of triggering and evolution of ISCs as well as the responsible mechanical instabilities of the solid-solid interfaces. In the meantime, a machine-learning combined with physics-based modeling will be introduced to achieve faster computation with higher accuracy. Results provide new insights into multiphysics behaviors in battery safety issues and offer engineering-ready modeling methodologies for the next-generation battery design, evaluation, and monitoring.

Speaker Biography

Dr. Jun Xu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering & Engineering Science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is the inaugural Director of NC Battery Complexity, Autonomous Vehicle and Electrification Research Center. Dr. Xu’s research mainly focuses on multiphysics modeling and characterization of batteries, and impact dynamics. Dr. Xu now serves as an executive committee member of the Advanced Energy System Division, ASME. He serves as Associate Editor of ASME Journal of Electrochemical Energy Conversion and Storage, Scientific Reports and Batteries. Dr. Xu has published more than 130 peer-reviewed journal papers with citations of 5000+, H-index 40. Dr. Xu was included in World’s Top 2% Scientist List (Mechanical Engineering & Transportation) (Stanford University, 2022) and awarded the prestigious James H. Woodward Faculty Research Award (2021, Chancellor’s Award) and Early-Career Faculty Awards for Excellence in Research (2022) at UNC Charlotte. Dr. Xu earned his Ph.D. degree from Columbia University in 2014.