WEBINAR SERIES: Real-World Challenges in Battery Testing: Safety, Durability & Performance in Mechanical Environments
A series of free-to-attend lunchtime webinars exploring the realities of battery testing, focusing on how safety, structural durability, thermal behaviour and vibration resilience are assessed and assured in real-world conditions.
Battery measurement and testing are crucial for ensuring performance, safety, and longevity, especially with the increasing demand for energy storage in electric vehicles and renewable energy systems. Testing them remains one of the most complex engineering challenges. Future trends include advanced testing technologies, solid-state batteries, and increased demand for energy storage solutions to support renewable energy and electric vehicles. The future of battery testing involves adapting to new chemistries, emerging applications, and the need for sustainable, robust, and reliable performance validation.
You can register for all the webinars or you can register for individual webinars using the links further down this page.
Webinar 1 - 2 June 2026, 12.30-1.30pm
Instrumentation Solutions for Battery Testing – Adrian Weeks, StrainSense
Battery testing involves a wide range of applications including shock, vibration, charging cycle, thermal runaway, uncontrolled current flow and short circuit testing. The analysis techniques include power and energy measurement, modal test, spectrum analysis and order analysis to streamline testing, analyse compliance with standards, verify modelling data and report generation. Testing takes place both on test rigs and in-vehicle to analyse batteries under all conditions, this presentation provides examples for all these applications.
The Challenges of the Measurement of Thermal Characteristics in HV battery packs – Peter Newton, Vector
HV battery packs have to be designed and built to work in extreme conditions over many years. They need to work in low and high temperature environments with daily charge and discharge cycles. Simulation of temperature profiles can be used to design a battery pack against thermal events. However, there is no substitute for actually building the pack and testing it. How can battery packs operating at high voltages and above be tested safely without compromising the design of the pack? This presentation will describe some of the challenges and how these might be addressed.
Webinar 2 - 10 June, 12.30-1.30pm
Beyond the Surface: Unlocking Insight with Thermal & Pressure Mapping Technologies – Andrew Ramage, Techni Measure
As electrochemical energy storage systems evolve, the need for detailed spatial and temporal diagnostics has become essential to improving safety, performance, and durability. This presentation covers advanced thermal and pressure mapping technologies that enable real-time, high-resolution insight into the internal dynamics of batteries under operating conditions. These sensor systems provide critical surface and interface data that conventional point measurements often miss. In battery testing, the interplay between thermal and pressure effects is a key contributor to degradation mechanisms. Thermal expansion during charging and discharging cycles induces mechanical stress on cell layers, which can lead to pressure build-up, electrode deformation, and ultimately delamination. Conversely, localised increases in pressure—due to gas evolution, swelling, or structural fatigue—can alter heat transfer characteristics, trap thermal energy, and accelerate failure modes such as thermal runaway. By simultaneously mapping these parameters, engineers can identify early warning signs of cell degradation, validate thermal management designs, and correlate electrochemical behaviour with mechanical responses.
Revealing the Hidden Structure: Advancing Battery Manufacturing with Computed Tomography – Dorota Matras, UK Battery Industrialisation Centre
At UKBIC, X-ray computed tomography (X-ray CT) plays a central role in assessing the quality of battery cells manufactured on our production lines. This non-invasive, high-resolution technique allows us to examine internal structures without disassembling the cell, making it invaluable for both routine quality control and detailed forensic analysis when issues arise. CT enables us to identify features such as electrode misalignment, cracking, and other internal defects, while also providing insight into complex architectural elements including tab placement, electrode length variations, and electrode start positions. By providing fast, consistent, and accurate characterisation of fully assembled cells, CT supports continuous improvement of our cell assembly processes. In this presentation, we will show examples of CT imaging highlighting how this capability enhances inspection, diagnostics, and process optimisation.
Webinar 3 - 23 June 2026, 12.30-1.30pm
Battery Electric Vehicles and the Issues When Testing Them – Martin Brown, HORIBA MIRA
Battery electric vehicles are no more dangerous than conventional vehicles, but they are dangerous in a different way! This talk will focus on the safety and practical implications of testing battery electric vehicles, the need to identify these new hazards during testing, and how we can successfully and safely respond to an emergency incident when it occurs.
Digital Image Correlation for Battery Integrity, Safety and Structural Optimisation – Presenter TBC, DeltaXD
This presentation explores how Digital Image Correlation (DIC) is leveraged to validate simulation models and assess the material and structural behaviour of electric-vehicle battery systems. Drawing on real-world examples—including pole crash tests on battery tray housings, vibration studies, and operational swelling of prismatic cells—the session demonstrates how full-field, high-speed deformation measurement provides critical insight into safety risks such as short-circuiting and thermal events. The talk highlights how DIC improves understanding of housing stiffness, module displacement, deformation modes and operational loads, supporting safer and more efficient battery and EV platform development.