Design of a battery intermediate storage system for rep-rated pulsed power loads

The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is developing a battery-powered, rep-rate charger for a 60-kJ capacitor bank. The capacitor will be charged with a bank of LiFePO4 batteries in conjunction with a DC-DC converter. During discharge, the batteries will generate heat from the internal resistance. If the heat is not addressed, damage to the cell may occur, leading to degraded cell lifetime and the potential for cell venting. NRL has developed an integrated cooling system for high power batteries that can limit the residual heat in the battery cells. Results from experiments will be presented, both at the cell and the module level.