JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Special Issue Smart Cities - November 2019 - 8

PROCESSING structural power composites

En route to "massless energy"
with structural power composites
Prof. Emile S. Greenhalgh,
Professor of Composite Materials
Imperial College London
Prof. Leif Asp,
Co-director Area of
Advance in Materials Science
Chalmers University of Technology
Prof. Dan Zenkert,
Professor in Lightweight Structures
KTH - Royal Institute of Technology
Dr Juan José Vilatela,
Senior Researcher, IMDEA Materials
Prof. Peter Linde,
Adjunct Professor at the Division of
Material and Computational Mechanics
Chalmers University of Technology
Airframe Architecture & Integration
Airbus

Structural power composites are structural composites
with the additional functionality of storing electrical
energy. This paper provides an overview of the recent
developments in structural batteries and structural
supercapacitors, and an industrial perspective on the
future challenges for their.

ightweighting and energy storage
are critical to transportation - composites have been at the forefront
of the former for decades, their adoption providing significant reductions
in system mass and hence emissions.
However, a completely new solution
to both lightweighting and energy
storage is emerging: structural power
composites. These are structural composites with the additional functionality of storing/delivering electrical
energy. This should not be confused
with multifunctional structures where
conventional energy storage devices
(e.g. batteries) are sandwiched within
conventional composite laminates.
In structural power composites, the
constituents (fibres and matrices)
synergistically and simultaneously
undertake both structural and electro-

industrial perspective on the potential
impact of structural power composites.

chemical roles. Polymeric composites
provide compelling opportunities
here - the laminated architecture and
the use of carbon are common to
both structural composites and energy storage devices. Melding of functions is a step change in how we use
polymeric composites, going beyond
the conventional monofunctional
structural roles. This emerging field
is presenting considerable technical
challenges, but promises exciting opportunities in transportation. Central
to this research is the SORCERER EU
Clean Sky 2 project, in which Imperial
College London, Chalmers, KTH and
IMDEA, under the technical guidance
of Airbus, are demonstrating structural
power in aerospace components. This
article provides a brief insight into this
emerging field, and culminates with an

Fig. 1: (a) Concept of a
laminated structural
carbon fibre battery; (b)
concept of a 3D structural
carbon fibre micro-battery
architecture

jec composites magazine / SPECIAL ISSUE Smart Cities / November 2019

Structural batteries
A structural battery is a material that
carries mechanical load while simultaneously providing electrical energy
storage. By adopting a multidisciplinary approach, a novel Li-ion battery
material was developed employing
commercial carbon fibre grades as
combined electrode and reinforcing
elements, and solid polymer electrolytes as the matrix for simultaneous
Li-ion transport and transfer of mechanical loads. These materials are anticipated to significantly reduce vehicle
system weight and allow electrical energy storage in the structural load path
of electrical vehicles in, for example,
the body-in-white. Two architectures
were conceived for making such structural battery materials: the laminated
battery and the 3D micro-battery, as
depicted in Figure 1.
A laminated structural battery is a
concept that resembles a conventional
fibre composite laminate (Figure 1a).
Carbon fibres are used as a high-performance structural backbone and laid
up in arbitrary angles in the following

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Special Issue Smart Cities - November 2019

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