Incremental Capacity Analysis of a Lithium-Ion Battery Pack for Different Charging Rates

Incremental Capacity Analysis (ICA) is a method used to investigate the capacity state of health of batteries by tracking the electrochemical properties of the cell. It is based on the differentiation of the battery capacity over the battery voltage, for a full or a partial cycle regarding the experimental conditions. Several ICA research studies have been performed on various Li-ion chemistries and several mathematical approaches have been employed to obtain the differential curves, with most studies however to be focused on a cell level analysis. In the present work, we have performed an in-depth investigation of two battery packs composed of 14 Lithium-ion cells each; for the purpose of evaluating the applicability and the challenges of the ICA on a battery pack level by means of different charging current rates. Also, at a certain charging current, the influence of the temperature on the ICA curves is also analyzed.