Panasonic Corporation

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Matsushita Electrical Industrial Co., Ltd.

Hironori Yukisada

Kenji Kimura

Tatsuya Hashimoto

Takabumi Fujii

Seiichi Uemoto

Masatomo Nagatani

Masao Nakamura

Kazutoshi Okubo

Masaya Nakata

Takahito Takahashi

A battery, suitable for forming a battery pack, includes an electrode assembly having a positive electrode plate and a negative electrode plate, and a separator wound or laminated together, core materials of the negative and positive electrode plates being bared respectively at either end. A bottomed cylindrical outer case having a bottom is connected to either end face of the electrode assembly to serve as a battery terminal. Electrolyte is impregnated in the electrode assembly and a lid connected to the other end face of the electrode assembly and fixedly attached to the outer case with a sealer and an insulator interposed therebetween. A connecting part is a part of the lid so that the connecting part engages with and connects to a bottom part of the outer case of another battery.

Battery and battery assembly

In a method for checking for leakage from tubular batteries, when tubular batteries are fed with their respective axial centers aligned in parallel to each other to pass through a leakage check mechanism, a sealed end face of the tubular batteries is irradiated with an X-ray. In accordance with the result of analysis on whether the incident fluorescent X-ray entering a detector contains a fluorescent X-ray associated with an electrolyte component, it is determined whether the tubular batteries have leaked. A length of a detection window of the detector in a direction of feed of the tubular batteries is set to be less than a spacing between the tubular batteries. A length of the detection window oriented orthogonal to the direction of feed is set to be greater than an outer size of the cross-sectional shape of the tubular batteries oriented orthogonal to their axial center.

Method for checking for leakage from tubular batteries

In a battery pack () that accommodates a plurality of batteries () arranged in parallel in a case () that forms a cooling-air passage (), the cooling-air passage () and a gas-discharge passage () for discharging gas leaking from the battery () when the battery () falls into abnormal state are formed and separated from each other in the case ().

Battery pack

In a battery having a structure that an electrode plate group, formed by winding a positive electrode plate and a negative electrode plate with a separator interposed therebetween, is housed in a battery case together with an electrolyte solution, the electrode plate group is rolled around a roll core, and both ends of the roll core are supported by the battery case.

Battery having nonconductive core

Growing community of inventors

Hirakata, Japan

Hironori Yukisada