International Business Machines Corporation

Conor R Thomas

Madhana Sunder

James A O'Connor

Guoda Lian

A system for explosively applying a fire-fighting foam is provided. The system includes a thermoelectric generator that is attached to a battery heat source. A temperature differential across the thermoelectric generator generates an electrical current having a temperature-dependent voltage. A detonator circuit is electrically connected to the thermoelectric generator. The detonator circuit measures the voltage of the electrical current. An explosive foam applicator is communicatively connected to the detonator circuit and includes a trigger mechanism that detonates a propelling charge in response to receiving a signal from the detonator circuit when the detonator circuit determines that the electrical current corresponds to temperature that is greater than or equal to a threshold temperature. The explosive foam applicator is oriented such that detonating the propelling the charge causes the explosive foam applicator to apply a foam to the battery heat source.

Automatically generating fire-fighting foams to combat Li-ion battery failures

An apparatus for automatically generating a fire-fighting foam at elevated temperatures is provided. The apparatus includes a container sized to hold at least one battery. Water is stored within the container. One or more cartridges made, at least in part, of a temperature-dependent breakdown material are stored within the container. The one or more cartridges contain a foaming agent. Heat generated by a failing battery causes the temperature-dependent breakdown material to fail such that the foaming agent is released from at least one cartridge to mix with the water stored within the container.

An apparatus and method for inducing high-speed wobble motions to a sample of interest is provided. After the sample is securely attached to a sample mounting block, the sample is variably tilted by using a hexapod stage and simultaneously rotated at a high speed about a rotation axis that is substantially perpendicular to a planar top surface of the hexapod stage. The position of the sample is continuously adjusted during the wobble motion to align a surface center of the sample with a testing center of an X-ray diffractometer. The simultaneous variable tilting and high-speed rotation of the sample induces wobble motions to the sample for randomizing orientations of a sample material's crystallites relative to the source and detector of an X-ray diffractometer.

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Woodbury, CT, United States of America

Conor R Thomas