Given the high level electrical performance requirements for a specific space application, it is desired to select a battery configuration that most effectively meets the mission requirements in terms of energy density, life cycle cost, cycle life, spacecraft orbit, and power system redundancy. In determining the most effective cell/battery configuration, large numbers of variables must be traded in order to arrive at the most effective solution. These variables include such items as power system architecture, battery chemistry, cell dimensions, internal component selection, heat rejection requirements, etc. The objective of this project is create a rule based system that captures expert rules, i.e. collective industry experience, for selecting the ideal Nickel-Hydrogen cell and battery configuration for a given application. All configurations designed by this system would be in keeping with current industry practices. This system would serve as a foundation for a system that would ultimately include all pertinent battery chemistries and their associated cell and battery configurations. In addition to an intensive focus on electrical performance, a fully implemented system would also evaluate complete structural and thermal concerns; concerns critical to accurate weight assessment. Potential Commercial Applications (Limit 200 words) Resulting from this contract will be a fully functional, rule based technology, ANSYS finite element interface. This interface will interpret geometry created by a rule-based model and create the corresponding thermal and structural finite element models. This interface will enable extremely rapid thermal and structural finite element analysis (FEA). Rapid and accurate FEA is an issue relating to virtually all design/manufacturing organizations. Aerospace, automotive and many other industries rely on such analysis. Order of magnitude acceleration of this type of analytical work is of great interest to ANSYS Inc., the supplier of the ANSYS finite element code.
