CONDUCTANCE TESTING COMPARED TO TRADITIONAL METHODS OF EVALUATING THE CAPACITY OF VALVE-REGULATED LEAD-ACID-BATTERIES AND PREDICTING STATE-OF-HEALTH

Recently, timed discharge capacity tests were performed on 336 individual valve-regulated lead/acid cells in a telecommunications power system. The results were compared with traditional methods of determining cell health (i.e., float voltage, open-circuit voltage, and calculated specific gravity.) At the same time, conductance measurements were taken, and these results were also compared to the results of the timed discharge capacity tests. Data will be presented which show that traditional methods indicate almost no correlation to timed discharge capacity testing. Conductance test data will be presented which show a very nearly linear correlation. Based on this correlation, these results indicate that conductance testing can provide users of valve-regulated lead/acid batteries with a valuable predictive tool for determining the state-of-health of individual cells.