Team Shock Therapy

Team members:Tim Blake EE SeniorTravis McMillen EE SeniorDavid Bankhead EE Senior

Advisors:Greg DonohoeHerb HessJim Klein

Opportunity Statement

• NAVY has electric submarines and ships• Batteries for these are replaced every 4 years• Costs NAVY a lot of money to replace batteries• Looking for a way to extend battery life

Sponsor

2011-2012

Understand project

Define parameters

Begin Testing

Order parts and implement into project

Shock Therapy Timeline

MayAprilMarchFebDecNovOctSep Jan

9 months projected plan

Visit Bayview site

Implement Ideas and schematics

Engineering Expo

Final Testing

Draw conclusions/ complete project

Fabricate project

Project Needs• Compare pulse charging vs. standard (constant-current,

constant-voltage) charging• Develop an algorithm and test setup to characterize

battery rejuvenators• Find the best charging methods (types of rejuvenators)

for the Navy– Current charging system will be replaced in the near future and

they want to implement the best charging methods possible.– Increase battery life– Develop a way to rejuvenate “dead” batteries

Project Learning

• Different charging methods are used to rejuvenate batteries– CCVT(Constant Current Constant Voltage)– Pulse

• Mostly dealing with pulse chargers– Renaissance– BatteryMinder

• Types of batteries:– 12 & 2 Volt, dry cell, lead acid batteries

How do you know when a battery’s life is done?

• Currently batteries are known to be unusable if they cannot be charged to a certain voltage.

• Our batteries are dry cell batteries so they cannot be checked by pH or sulfate levels.

• One of the primary goals of this project is to determine if there are any parameters other than voltage drop that exist which would indicate a “dead” or “dying” battery.

Preliminary concepts

• Design a battery rejuvenator of our own based on analysis– Compare with commercial product

• Create test set up that will characterize pulse chargers– Software algorithm– Manual testing procedure