Highly porous carbon foam structures bonded with polymers such as polypropylene replace lead plates in typical vehicle batteries in a novel materials’ solution to problems with battery life and weight. The innovation comes from a company called Firefly Energy, using technology developed in the R&D Labs at Caterpillar, which was looking for a better battery for its vehicles. In the invention, carbon-graphite foam “grids” are loaded with lead oxides. The foam structure, creates huge surface-area advantages over conventional lead acid grid structures. Active material utilization levels go from the historical 20-50 percent up into the range of 70-90 percent as well as enhanced fast-recharge capability and greater high-rate / low-temperature discharge times, according to Firefly. Costs to produce energy will be higher than conventional lead acid batteries, but below other new technologies, such as lithium batteries. Firefly hopes the approach will be competitive for electric vehicles under development. North Star Battery will produce prototypes for possible use by the US Army.
A new process for laser-welding large-scale, steel-aluminum foam sandwich structures for lightweighting ships, which eliminates intermetallic phase, has been demonstrated.
A major advance in repairing composite structures combining robots and lasers bodes well for commercial aircraft such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus A350XWB, which contain composites in large proportions of their structures.
Against a backdrop of mounting product complexity and a need to keep a lid on development costs, companies are recognizing a need to make simulation a more integral part of the design process. In response, vendors in the CAD world are building out CAE functionality as part of their CAD suites while simulation vendors are building tighter integrations to leading CAD tools. Keith Meintjes, Ph.D., Practice Manager, Simulation and Analysis at CIMdata, Inc., joins Design News CAD Editor Beth Stackpole in this radio program to explore the new face of integrated CAD and CAE, how companies are benefitting from this tighter partnership between platforms, and how integrating CAE earlier in the development cycle pays off in optimized product designs.
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