Numerical model reduction of the electro-chemically coupled multi-scale transport of electroactive species

Abstract

Carbon fibers are mostly used as structural reinforcement materials, but they can also serve as high capacity Li-ion battery negative electrodes. By utilizing the carbon fiber’s intrinsic ability to carry load and to insert lithium ions, a new type of multi-functional material called the structural battery composite can be realized.[1] The focus of this presentation is on the multi-scale and multi-physics Finite Element Analysis of the structural battery composite. We are particularly interested in predicting the electro-chemical performance of the Structural Battery Electrolyte (SBE) by utilizing computational homogenization,[2] and numerical model reduction (NMR).[3] For our two-scale modeling approach, we numerically generate sub-scale Representative Volume Elements (RVE) representing the stochastic bicontinuous microstructure of an SBE (porous polymer skeleton filled with liquid electrolyte), see Figure 1.

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