Shapes and thermomechanical analyses of a hot roll for manufacturing electrodes of polymer batteries

The battery electrode of a mobile phone is made of layered polymer coated on aluminum foils and the hot robing process is applied to increase the density per volume of an electrode for a high capacity battery. The flatness of batteries surfaces should be less than 2 μm. To satisfy the required flatness, the deformation of roll surface due to bending and heating of the roll should be minimized. Complicated hot off paths of 100 °C inside the roll are required for heating the polymer layers. FEA was used to calculate thermal deformations and temperatures distributions of the roller. Based on FEA, a modified surface curvature called a crown roll was suggested and this gave the area of 30% improved flatness compared with a flat roll. The flat roll satisfied the flatness of 2 μm in the length of 340 mm and the crown roll resulted in the longer length of 460 mm. Experiments to measure the temperature distribution and thermal strain were performed and compared with FEA. There were only 6% difference between two results.