Individual battery cells are mostly either cylindrical, rectangular, or pouch shape. Rectangular cells stack compactly, whereas cylindrical forms resist swelling. Tetris is a computer game that stacks different shapes each comprising four rectangles some call ‘tetras’. But how will tetris-shape batteries put GM ahead of the game?
GM Patent Reveals Tetris-Shape Batteries
- Patent Application US5378555A (Electric Vehicle Battery Pack) reveals composite shapes not unlike tetra blocks. The introductory paragraph reads as follows:
“An electric vehicle battery pack including a plurality of batteries ganged together in an underlying tray. The tray preferably has a plurality of pockets therein each for receiving an individual battery.
The batteries are interlocked one to the next, and held in place in the tray by a housing. This bears down on the batteries by means of a resilient spacer positioned between the tops of the batteries and the ceiling of the housing. This pack forms a structural part of the vehicle in which it is used.”
How Could This Invention Benefit GM?
Website Motor.1 explains how the stacked arrangement of ‘L’ and ‘C’ tetris-shape batteries creates a natural opening for cooling. This certainly is an unusual arrangement that could present manufacturing challenges. Website Motor.1 sounds skeptical, but we thought to consider the following from the patent application first:
“The interlock plugs will include at least one passage, transverse to their length, for permitting pack accessories. These include coolant tubes, inter-battery connectors (e.g. cables) and wiring systems.
These circuits for electronic controllers and / or monitors, etc, would pass through for connection to the vehicle’s drive and / or control system.”
This certainly sounds like a departure from current conventions for stacking batteries securely. And this while still allowing space for cooling, electric vehicle reticulation and thermal control. We shall watch this one with interest, because it shuns convention in a most unusual way.
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