On Thu, 25 Mar 2021 11:21:33 -0700, Mark Mocho wrote:

Andy's post about the carbon fiber "structural battery" is interesting.
But I wonder what perils might arise from having the energy storage in
the wings and/or body of the vehicle and getting into a crash. Do you
get a bigger puff of smoke , a lovely thermal runaway and fire as a
result of a fender bender?

Two things the ocurred to me:

- if the battery is (part of) the structure, how easy it it to replace
and the bit of the structure storing energy when it gets old or fails?

- AFAIK the amount of energy stored in a battery depends on the amount,
and hence mass, of active material in the battery so, a thin carbon
shell and a lithium-coated piece of aluminium foil may make a strong,
light structure, but how much energy does it hold when fully charged
and how much does the thing weigh when you've packed enough of these
together to store the amount of energy your device requires. I can
maybe see this working if its the shell of a mobile phone, but if its
a car's body structure, or aircraft fuselage?


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org