Load bank (university project)

Thread Starter

vcio

Joined Dec 26, 2016
2
Hello,

I'm a bit stuck with my final year project at university and I decided to join the forum.

Hope someone can help me out with a couple of ideas. I'm supposed to come up with an innovative alternative for the resistors in a load bank which are then going to be used for testing of batteries in railway substations.

Ideally this would be something which would reduce the weight of the load bank but not a main concern at the moment, hopefully you know any other interesting materials/devices witch I could use as replacements and of which I could at least obtain a sample and perform a couple of resistance tests on.
 

#12

Joined Nov 30, 2010
18,224
AA batteries? 9V batteries? 12V forklift batteries? Lithium ion batteries? NiMH batteries? Hearing aid batteries?
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
29,932
Hello,

I'm a bit stuck with my final year project at university and I decided to join the forum.

Hope someone can help me out with a couple of ideas. I'm supposed to come up with an innovative alternative for the resistors in a load bank which are then going to be used for testing of batteries in railway substations.

Ideally this would be something which would reduce the weight of the load bank but not a main concern at the moment, hopefully you know any other interesting materials/devices witch I could use as replacements and of which I could at least obtain a sample and perform a couple of resistance tests on.
So take a shot at doing what YOU are supposed to do, namely come up with an innovative alternative. Don't just ask strangers to spoon feed you solutions when the whole point of a final year project is for you to demonstrate what YOU have learned.

What are some thoughts that YOU have on possible alternatives? Let's discuss the pros and cons of those. Out of those discussions you might come up with some other ideas that are worth exploring. You will also be able to make a stronger case for the alternative you finally picked in your final report.
 

JoeJester

Joined Apr 26, 2005
4,390
Hope someone can help me out with a couple of ideas. I'm supposed to come up with an innovative alternative for the resistors in a load bank which are then going to be used for testing of batteries in railway substations.
Individual batteries or banks of batteries? What are the battery specifications?
 

Thread Starter

vcio

Joined Dec 26, 2016
2
Thank you all for you replies.

To be a bit more specific I'd be looking into testing batteries for a UPS system (6 parallel strings of 4 batteries which would provide a voltage of aprox. 52-54 V and each string can provide 51 A/h) so the load must take 153 A or 16.8 kW of heat.


So take a shot at doing what YOU are supposed to do, namely come up with an innovative alternative. Don't just ask strangers to spoon feed you solutions when the whole point of a final year project is for you to demonstrate what YOU have learned.
There's a difference between ideas and solutions! I'm only looking for an idea, hopefully from someone which has some insight into 'novel materials'. I've been doing quite a bit of research into this and not much alternatives out there for the conventional resistors.
 

#12

Joined Nov 30, 2010
18,224
There's a difference between ideas and solutions! I'm only looking for an idea
The Physics 101 approach is: The only way to test the capacity of a battery is to stress its ability to deliver power, and that causes heat, and that requires bulk to dissipate the heat. You're supposed to be in Physics 402. What other method could test the ability of a battery? Does a healthy battery cringe less when you shout at it? Does it have better conductivity at high frequencies? Does it have better admittance to a charging current (if you already know the state of charge and the ambient temperature)?

That's the idea. Look for a different way than placing a load on the battery.
 
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