Power supplies generalized design approach

A Generalized Design Approach to Power Supplies Introducing the Building-block Approach to Power Supply Design... 

In general, ensuring a safe product begins at cell level and ends with the user. The IEEE 1625 and 1725 standards committees have recently focused on conveying the concept that Li-ion battery-pack safety is a function of the entirety of the cell, pack, system design and manufacture [8,9]. A system-level approach thus becomes very essential in addressing the safety of Li-ion batteries. System-level safety includes the combination of cell, battery pack, host device, power supply or adapter end user/environment, and each of these aspects has a role to play in ensuring pack safety. 

The chapters have been set out in a sequence that generally represents the approach to engineering and designing a project. The first step is to estimate a total power consumption or load for a plant. Then it is necessary to decide how this load is to be supplied. For example the supply could be from a utility intake, by captive generators or by a combination of both supplies. 

As described previously, despite the maximum power performance for a cathode fed directly with oxygen, the design is not practical because of its technical requirements, safety, cost, and its need for the user to service the feed system. It may be more feasible, however, to supply a low-pressure, low flow rate compressed air feed leveraged from other parts of the system, in a passive form. Oxidizer feed supply may be necessary for special applications in which not enough ambient oxygen or air is available. In general, for a low power generating EFC system, it is envisioned that passive di sion of ambient air to the cathode is the most technically viable approach. 

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