Abstract:In the past five years, there have been numerous cases of Li-ion battery fires and explosions, resulting in property damage and bodily injuries. This paper discusses the thermal runaway mechanism and presents various thermal runaway mitigation approaches, including separators, flame retardants, and safety vents. The paper then overviews measures for extinguishing fires, and concludes with a set of recommendations for future research and development.

Novel permanent magnet (PM) motor drives have been successfully developed to fulfil the special requirements for electric vehicles such as high power density, high efficiency, high starting torque, and high cruising speed. These PM motors are all brushless and consist of various types, namely rectangular-fed, sinusoidal-fed, surface-magnet, buried-magnet, and hybrid. The advent of novel motor configurations lies on the unique electromagnetic topology, including the concept of multipole magnetic circuit and full slot-pitch coil span arrangements, leading to a reduction in both magnetic yoke and copper, decoupling of each phase flux path, and hence an increase in both power density and efficiency. Moreover, with the use of fractional number of slots per pole per phase, the cogging torque can be eliminated. On the other hand, by employing the claw-type rotor structure and fixing an additional field winding as the inner stator, these PM hybrid motors can further provide excellent controllability and improve efficiency map. In the PM motors, by purposely making use of the transformer EMF to prevent the current regulator from saturation, a novel control approach is developed to allow for attaining high-speed constant-power operation which is particularly essential for electric vehicles during cruising. Their design philosophy, control strategy, theoretical analysis, computer simulation, experimental tests and application to electric vehicles are described.

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Due to the widespread deployment of distributed energy resources (DERs) and the liberalization of electricity market, traditional distribution networks are undergoing a transition to active distribution systems (ADSs), and the traditional deterministic planning methods have become unsuitable under the high penetration of DERs. Aiming to develop appropriate models and methodologies for the planning of ADSs, the key features of ADS planning problem are analyzed from the different perspectives, such as the allocation of DGs and ESS, coupling of operation and planning, and high-level uncertainties. Based on these analyses, this comprehensive literature review summarizes the latest research and development associated with ADS planning. The planning models and methods proposed in these research works are analyzed and categorized from different perspectives including objectives, decision variables, constraint conditions, and solving algorithms. The key theoretical issues and challenges of ADS planning are extracted and discussed. Meanwhile, emphasis is also given to the suitable suggestions to deal with these abovementioned issues based on the available literature and comparisons between them. Finally, several important research prospects are recommended for further research in ADS planning field, such as planning with multiple micro-grids (MGs), collaborative planning between ADSs and information communication system (ICS), and planning from different perspectives of multi-stakeholders.

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Long-term cycling performances of LiFePO 4 /graphite batteries have been investigated in different state-of-charge (SOC) ranges. It is found that batteries cycled in the medium SOC range exhibit superior cycling stability over those cycled at both ends of the SOC ranges. A variety of characterization techniques, including galvanostatic intermittent titration technique (GITT) analysis, model-based parameter identification, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy analysis, and entropy change test, were used to investigate the performance difference of the batteries cycled in different SOC ranges. The results reveal that batteries at the end of SOC exhibit much higher polarization impedance than those within the medium-SOC range. This result can be attributed to the significant structural change of the cathode and anode materials as revealed by the large entropy change within these SOC regions. Identification of the best operating conditions for LiFePO 4 /graphite batteries will significantly extend their cycle life. The general control principle obtained in this work, such as modulating the charge/discharge current to minimize the impedance extremes can also be used in the operation control of other battery systems.

This paper proposes a novel extended-single-phase shift (ESPS) control strategy of isolated bidirectional full-bridge DC-DC converters (IBDCs) which are a promising alternative as a power electronic interface in microgrids with an additional function of galvanic isolation. Based on the mathematical models of ESPS control under steady-state conditions, detailed theoretical and experimental analyses of IBDC under ESPS control are presented. Compared with conventional single-phase-shift (CSPS) control, ESPS control can greatly improve the efficiency of IBDCs in microgrids through decreasing current stress and backflow power considerably over a wide input and output voltage range under light and medium loads. In addition, ESPS control only needs to adjust one single phase-shift angel to control transmission power, thus it retains implementation simplicity in comparison with dual-phase-shift (DPS) control for microgrid applications. Furthermore, an efficiency-optimized modulation scheme based on ESPS and CSPS control is developed in the whole power range of IBDC for power distribution in microgrids. A 10 kW IBDC prototype is constructed and the experimental results validate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy, showing that the proposed strategy can enhance the overall efficiency up to 30%.