Abstract: One or more aspects of the present disclosure are directed to fixturing mechanisms for placement of battery cells inside an ultrasonic testing system. The disclosed fixturing mechanisms enable accurate and predictable loading, placement, and unloading of battery cells inside ultrasonic testing systems allowing all faces of battery cells of different types (e.g., pouch cells, prismatic cells, cylindrical cells, etc.) to have sufficient exposure to transmission and reception of acoustic signals. This fixturing mechanism furthers the goal of providing a robustly designed ultrasonic test system and producing accurate inspection results for batteries.

Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure are directed to a suite of testing apparatuses and non-destructive, acoustic inspection methods for scanning and inspecting batteries to determine and characterize various physical phenomena in these batteries. In one aspect, a rastering system for non-invasive and acoustic inspection of battery cells includes a holder for placing a battery cell inside the system for the acoustic inspection, at least one transducer configured to perform acoustic measurements on the battery cell, and a controller configured with inspection parameters for performing the acoustic measurements, the inspection parameters being dynamic and interchangeable depending on at least one or more of a shape, a size, and a form factor of the battery cell.

Abstract: The present disclosure are directed to techniques for defect detection and identification inside batteries. In one aspect, a non-invasive method of identifying and labeling defects in a battery cell includes transmitting acoustic signals through a battery cell via one or more first transducers, receiving response signals in response to the acoustic signals at one or more second transducers, determining whether at least one feature of interest exists in the battery cell based on analyzing the response signals, performing an identification and labeling process on the at least one feature of interest to determine at least one defect in the battery cell, and outputting a result of the identification and labeling process.