Battery Abuse Tolerance 143 Figure 1 Arbin BT 2000 battery tester. enables the cells, modules, or packs to be tested at specific temperatures generally from −40 °C up to about 60 °C and above ( Figure 2 ). In addition to the performance testing, there is also usually a certain amount of life cycle testing that must be done during the characterization stage. The purpose of this is to ensure that the battery will meet the required power and energy at the end of its useful life as well as to ensure that the battery can meet its warranty targets.
An example of a characterization testing suite could include tests such as cycle testing is perhaps the longest running portion of the characterization testing as it can take over a year to complete, depending on the size of the battery. For example, it is not unheard of for a cycle life test for a large plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) or battery electric vehicle (BEV) battery of between 10 kWh and 16 kWh to take in the range of 400–420 days to complete due to the size of the usable energy that must be fully discharged and charged (cycled) along with whatever rest period is required between discharging and charging the battery pack.
In this example, you may be lucky to achieve one cycle per day. For example, if were testing a Chevy Volt battery with 10.5 kWh of usable energy at 120 V and 15 A (about a 1° C rate) it would take between 3 and 4 h to fully charge the battery and then the same again to discharge it. And if the life of the battery assumes one cycle per day for 10 years, that is 365 cycles per year