Intellex Acquires Expert by Big Village

We're thrilled to announce that Intellex has acquired Expert by Big Village, effective March 22, 2024. This strategic move enhances our capabilities and strengthens our commitment to delivering exceptional solutions to our customers.

Stay tuned for more updates on how this acquisition will benefit our clients and experts.

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Expert Details

Batteries and Battery Interfaces: System Design and Analysis

ID: 731600 Idaho, USA

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Expert has a great deal of experience in failure analysis of various battery systems including lithium, lithium-ion, lithium-polymer, and various other nonaqueous and aqueous based systems, both primary and secondary. He is the sole battery safety instructor for NASA and has also taught a battery applications class with the director of R&D from a major battery company to NASA. Through his over 40 year career in high reliability lithium, lithium-ion, and aqueous batteries he has designed, built and tested batteries for heart pacemakers, satellites, and remote applications and environments where the batteries can not be replaced. He has worked with numerous chemical systems including; lithium-iodine, lithium-CFx, lithium-manganese dioxide, various lithium-liquid cathode systems, lithium-ion, lithium-polymer, sodium-sulfur, nickel-hydrogen, nickel-metal hydride, nickel-cadmium, silver-zinc, lead-acid, alkaline, and thermal batteries. He has his own facility for battery testing and battery teardown for failure analysis of battery systems and has done so for NASA, the aerospace community, and various commercial vendors, as well as, the legal community.

Prior to starting his own business over 20 years ago he also acted as an in house consultant for major corporations due to his broad knowledge in battery applications both in military/government and the commercial sectors. At his test facility he has performed life, characterization, and safety testing for NASA and other customers and has equipment capable of wide temperature, current, and voltage ranges. He has qualified batteries for both the STS (shuttle) and the ISS (International Space Station). The safety test chamber can safely test batteries up to approximately one kW. Expert has a battery database that goes back more than 40 years which has been useful for some legal actions on patent infringement and where replacement batteries are no longer available. He is an expert in "system design" which is a requirement to obtain high reliability and long life in remote applications and modern devices.

He has a thorough understanding of the battery interfaces and their effect on the lifetime of the battery. These interfaces include; thermal, electrical, and mechanical, as well as, the internals of the cell and battery designs and the quality control necessary to obtain these goals. He has performed trouble shooting and failure analysis for such organizations as NATO and has helped commercial customers which has had reporting requirements to the FAA and FDA. He has reviewed contracts for the DoE and other government organizations. He has presented numerous papers and has been an invited speaker to the Inorganic Fluorine Chemistry meeting in Russia.

He has previously been involved with automobile racing as pit crew and technical inspector and has served on an ad hoc committee for EV racing for the Sports Car Club of America. Expert has also built prototype batteries for both military and commercial customers, as well as, performed international marketing and analysis.

He determined the reason for failure and fire of a lithium-ion battery system aboard a racing catamaran sailboat.He determined the reasons for failure in lithium-ion batteries in a portable gaming device, PDA, cell phone, and digital cameras.He has been responsible for determining battery failures on numerous battery designs for both military and commercial customers and has provided support for new programs that required specialty batteries.He has provided battery testing and consulting services for various customers in the aerospace industry for both aircraft and space applications. He has his own battery testing and disassembly and analysis facility.He has performed trouble shooting and design considerations for various government customers.

Education

Year Degree Subject Institution
Year: 1970 Degree: BS Subject: Chemistry Institution: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
Year: 1972 Degree: none Subject: Interdisciplinary Institution: RPI

Work History

Years Employer Title Department
Years: 1992 to Present Employer: Undisclosed Title: Owner Department:
Responsibilities:
He started and runs a battery design, testing, and consulting business.
Years Employer Title Department
Years: 1987 to 1991 Employer: Hughes Aircraft Title: Battery Staff Engineer Department:
Responsibilities:
He was responsible for several Hi-H2, Ni-Cd, and Na-S battery programs, internal consulting for other divisions, evaluation of new cell and battery technologies, and international marketing.
Years Employer Title Department
Years: 1981 to 1986 Employer: Ford Aerospace Title: Battery Project Manager Department:
Responsibilities:
He was responsible for integrating a high temperature sodium-sulfur battery into spacecraft design. He was also responsible for building Ni-H2 and Ni-Cd batteries into spacecraft. He also acted as an in house consultant for other divisions and applications.
Years Employer Title Department
Years: 1975 to 1981 Employer: Medtronic, Inc. Title: Lithium Battery Project Manager Department: Energy Technology (Promeon)
Responsibilities:
He responsibilities included design and manufacture of prototype lithium-iodine batteries and transfer them into production. Helped with development of a new battery facility. Testing and evaluation of lithium batteries. Acted as an in house consultant.
Years Employer Title Department
Years: 1973 to 1975 Employer: General Electric Title: electrochemist Department: R&D facility (K-1)
Responsibilities:
He was responsible for assembly and testing of various prototype solid electrolyte batteries.
Years Employer Title Department
Years: 1973 to 1973 Employer: Honeywell Title: electrochemist Department: Power Sources Center
Responsibilities:
R&D in both molten salt and ambient temperature lithium batteries.
Years Employer Title Department
Years: 1967 to 1969 Employer: Union Carbide Corp. Title: Department: Metals Div.
Responsibilities:
(summers) Performed chemical analyses of various ores and metals.

Government Experience

Years Agency Role Description
Years: 1994 to 2011 Agency: NASA Role: Cell & Battery Testing Description: Expert was responsible for testing both cells and batteries for safety, life and characterization to identify weakness and flaws in their designs.
Years: 1999 to 2013 Agency: NSWC Role: Develop batteries Description: Design and build batteries for various new Navy programs
Years: 1992 to 1994 Agency: NUWC Role: Battery consultant Description: He helped to determine the reasons for failure of a battery & cell design.

International Experience

Years Country / Region Summary
Years: 2001 to 2003 Country / Region: Russia Summary: He built and tested lithium battery cells with cathode materials provided by a Russian customer. He presented a paper on the results at a professional international meeting in Russia.
Years: 2000 to 2000 Country / Region: Japan Summary: He performed a marketing survey and made recommendations for advanced satellite batteries for a Japanese customer.
Years: 1977 to 1979 Country / Region: Canada, Norway, Scotland, Iceland Summary: He performed trouble shooting on backup batteries for various NATO ground stations scattered around Europe and North America.
Years: 1989 to 1991 Country / Region: France, UK, Germany Summary: He prepared and presented marketing information for aerospace cells and batteries to potential customers in Europe.
Years: 1976 to 1979 Country / Region: France Summary: He was responsible for building and flying batteries on spacecraft for a French customer including presentations and design reviews.

Career Accomplishments

Associations / Societies
Previous member of the ECS and ISE.
Previous President of the local chapter of the ECS.
Publications and Patents Summary
He has over 14 papers on batteries and battery safety.

Additional Experience

Expert Witness Experience
He has been an expert witness on numerous cases in both state and federal courts. After performing his analysis and report all defendants have settled out of court. Only one deposition was necessary to accomplish these settlements.
Training / Seminars
Battery applications course for NASA-Kennedy through the University of Alabama.
Battery applications course for aircraft power system subcontractor.
The sole Battery Safety Course instructor for NASA.
Vendor Selection
He has over 40 years experience in dealing with customers and vendors in both the commercial and governments markets.
Marketing Experience
He has worked with lithium based cells and batteries for more than 40 years.
Other Relevant Experience
He is familiar with numerous battery designs and interfaces with both government and commercial applications over wide power, energy, and environmental ranges.

Project work:
2018-2022 -
Worked with a major corporation on developing and testing new Lithium-ion batteries for their various devices.
This included:
Testing and evaluation of their cell designs
Testing and evaluation of their safety circuit(s)
Cell X-rays and cell disassembly to determine quality control
Evaluation of the Vendors assembly procedures
Safety testing of prototype cells
Final Report

2019-2022 -
Analyzed Lithium-ion battery failures in a company that makes several models of portable computers.
This included:
Failure analysis of the reasons for the failure taking into account the mechanical, thermal, and electrical interfaces of the batteries of the computer(s).
Analyzing the cell, battery, and safety circuits of the various batteries and interfaces.
Making recommendations on design modifications to improve safety and reliability of the cells and batteries.
Evaluating the computer for possible design flaws which could lead to battery failures.
Final report

Note: The Model that had the initial battery problem, where recommendations were made and followed, has not had a failure since the recommended modifications were performed - approximately 4 years ago and continuing. Recommendations have been made on a 2nd computer design and interfaces as well but Vendor changes are still in process.

Numerous venting Lithium-ion cell and battery cases for failure analysis for both plaintiff and defense attorneys.

Language Skills

Language Proficiency
French He has knowledge of the French language but hasn't needed to use it for a long time.

Fields of Expertise

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