Seismic-fragility tests of new and accelerated-aged Class 1E battery cells

The seismic-fragility response of naturally-aged nuclear station safety-related batteries is of interest for two reasons: (1) to determine actual failure modes and thresholds and (2) to determine the validity of using the electrical capacity of individual cells as an indicator of the potential survivability of a battery given a seismic event. Prior reports in this series discussed the seismic-fragility tests and results for three specific naturally-aged cell types: 12-year old NCX-2250, 10-year old LCU-13, and 10-year old FHC-19. This report focuses on the complementary approach, namely, the seismic-fragility response of accelerated-aged batteries. Of particular interest is the degree to which such approaches accurately reproduce the actual failure modes and thresholds. In these tests the significant aging effects observed, in terms of seismic survivability, were: embrittlement of cell cases, positive bus material and positive plate grids; and excessive sulphation of positive plate active material causing hardening and expansion of positive plates. The IEEE Standard 535 accelerated aging method successfully reproduced seismically significant aging effects in new cells but accelerated grid embrittlement an estimated five years beyond the conditional age of other components