Diehl & Eagle Picher (D&EP) was founded in 1971 as a joint venture between EaglePicher Technologies, a world market leader in defence batteries, and Diehl BGT Defence, one of Germany’s leading defence systems manufacturers. Its product portfolio encompasses activatable thermal batteries and lithium reserve batteries, as well as primary and secondary customised battery packs.
With more than 40 years’ experience in the production of thermal batteries, D&EP designs, develops, manufactures and qualifies its highly reliable thermal batteries in close collaboration with its customers according to their individual requirements.
In 2011, D&EP was awarded the contract by a renowned European manufacturer to design and manufacture thermal batteries for torpedo countermeasures/anti-missile decoys used on surface ships and submarines. The thermal battery developed by D&EP equips a naval application consisting of a sonobuoy used for transmitting jamming signals. The output voltage of the thermal battery provides all the power needed for the electrical operation of the sonobuoy. The battery design is based on D&EP’s standard LiSi/FeS2 electrochemical system.
After a ten-month design and development period, the battery successfully passed all tests, and satisfied every demand required by the customer and the system in which it will be integrated. Serial deliveries are to start in 2013. Like this thermal battery design, all batteries developed by D&EP are manufactured in accordance with the ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 standards and adhere to established statutory provisions.
This battery design consists of 61 series-connected cells housed in a hermetically sealed alloy stainless steel container. With technical features including nominal voltage of 100V, a discharge current of 7A with 16A pulses, and a lifetime of greater than ten minutes, the highly sophisticated battery is designed to operate in a temperature range from -4°C to +36°C.