Performance studies of lead acid batteries for transport vehicles

Abstract

Currently, Transport Vehicles (TVs) use Lead-Acid Batteries (LABs) for starting, lighting, igniting (SLI) and energy storage. Unfortunately LABs face significant performance failure rate due to over-charging, under-charging, degradation of protection systems amongst other issues. It is due to these reasons that the proposed research study seeks to enhance the performance of LABs for TVs (LABs-TVs). This will be done by developing a strategy for enhancing the performance in terms of lifespan, storage capacity and efficiency for LABs-TVs. The technical solution will be proposed by first analyzing the existing technologies deployed around the world (i.e Europe, China, South Africa, United Kingdom and America). The research study will then identify emerging technologies regarding battery charging/ discharging and storage mechanisms for LABs-TVs. The research will then develop a new strategy for enhancing the performance of LABs-TVs. This strategy will be based on an automatic charging/ discharging level control technique characterized by the chemical composition of existing LABs-TVs. The strategy developed will comprise of the new algorithm for charging/ discharging LABs on single charger regardless of their chemical compositions. This new algorithm will control the charging current and voltage as well as the operating environmental temperature for LABs. The proposed strategy will then be validated using Matlab/Simulink tool. Because of the inherent technical advantages that will be derived from the literature, resulting strategy is most likely expected to improve the performance of LABs-TVs.