Manufacture and mechanical properties of sandwich structure-battery composites

An innovative sandwich battery composite was designed and manufactured by applying he vacuum assisted hand lay-up molding process. A series of bending mechanical properties and electrical performance testing were performed to investigate the reliability of the structure-battery composites. Experimental results showed that embedding the lithium polymer cell had no influence on the specific strength of the composite components and the electrical properties of the battery packs. Moreover, the charging and discharging properties of the structure-battery composites were not affected when subjected to 60% of failure load level or less. Under 80% of failure load, the charging and discharging capacities of the battery were reduced by 21.80% and 22.78%, respectively, and this degradation was unrecoverable. The structure-battery system has great potential as a multifunctional composite to optimize structural design and improve lightweight integrated properties.