New Battery Charging Facility Installed Here A new Nickel Cadmium Battery Charging Facility has re- cently been installed at Dugway Proving Ground, Dugway, Utah. The Facility incorporates a new' charging concept which makes practical an automatic battery charging system that will either produce a fully charged battery or identify those batteries which will not accept a full charge. 1 THE NEW charging concept developed by Design and Development Division of Dugway Proving Ground. With the assistance of the Field Power Section, Operations Branch of Test Division, a bread board model of the charging system was constructed to verify the feasibility of applying the principle to mass charging of Nickel Cadmium batteries. t Aaron . Haymes, Design and Development Division, served as project engineer during the development and installation of the system. Utah Research and Development Co., Salt Lake City, Utah, was awarded the contract for construction and installation of the system. The Charging Facility is located in the former Radiation Laboratory Building (better known as the Mouse House) in Avery Technical Center. Modifications required on the building to allow it to house the new battery, shop included: Upgrading the electrical service lines to provide the 400 kilowatts of power required, providing an all weather fresh air ventilation system to disburse the explosive mixture of hydrogen and oxygen given off by batteries under charge, adding a new overhead door to allow efficient use of the trailers for battery transportation, and installing flood lights to il- -, ' luminate the battery storage area and work area surrounding the battery shop. was HANDLING THE easy way. The trailer will be backed into position, charging leadi connected to the batteries, button pushed starting the charger and in less than two hours batteries will be charged and ready for use. BATTERY J ill " 4 UUIIIIW WlllUn oamaa (I BATTERIES HAVING any state of charge, from completely discharged to fully charged, can be safely placed on the charger. The charger will determine the amounts of charge required by the individual batteries and insert into each battery only the amount of charge required to fully charge that battery. The batteries are charged at a high constant current as long as they can accept the high rate without damage. Each battery is unable to accept the high rate charge without possible damage and reduces the current to- - a safe finishing rate for the remainder of the charge. It also programs the charger to insert the correct amount of finishing charge and turns off the charger when the battery is fully charged. b. The Battery Maintenance !' bffiJirJS MSG EARL C ' D. Byrd, the aMnHiH nssssssssBLisssssssssssl MBiiiaaiiiHssssssssssssvi II wlh, fro"V lr0WP T Kohcrt l01,lv. o xl HGjr II Equipment: The primary use of Nickel Cadmium batteries at Dugway Proving Ground is to supply power at remote locations for the Biological and Chemical samplers used by Test Division. DOYLE C. HARRIS in the Maintenance Room of the new Nickel Cadmium Battery Shop checking electrolyte level of some battery cells: Maintenance and repair of Nickel Cadmium batteries goes down to the individual cell level. if JaJdii. MAINTENANCE ROOM OF the new Nickel Cadmium Battery Shop. The battery with the tag attached is receiving a rejuvination charge from Automatic Battery Charger Number 2. V :vv tssssssssM t sssssssssslBsllslsBssaMHBBsssssssssssssssssssssss ?S I -- :j repair operations on the batteries down to but not including 'rebuilding of the individual cells. Test and maintenance pro--, cedures that are established by Manuals Technical Military andor commercial publications are followed. Five single battery chargers and eight load banks designed to simplify testing of the batteries are the only special equipment contained in the Maintenance Room. C. BATTERY Transportation CHARCING COMPLETED. The trailer will be towed to the parking lot. In the background are other trailers, all empty. It might be mentioned that although DPC has about 2500 nickel cadmium batteries, at the time these pictures were taken all the batteries new except those shown in the above picture, were in use. One of the advantages of the batof the be can 1000 batteries since inventory charged, per day charging facility is, teries can be held close to the number of batteries actually required for operation. ssssssssHaaMstwiJaKSMMaBH f Room: This room is equipped to perform maintenance functions and The average distance between the Battery Shop and location of the samplers is about 20 miles. To minimize manual lifting of the batteries special trailers were designed. The batteries, loaded on these trailers in the field, can be routed through decontamination, washing, charging, inspecTHE CHARGING Facility, tion, and back to the field withwhich is operated by Field Po- out being removed from the trailwer Section, Operations Branch, er. Use of the trailers eliminates Test Division at Dugway, con- much of the manual handling of sists of: the batteries which would othera. The Main Charge Room: wise be at each of This room is the heart of the the above required Since the operations. system. It contains equipment batteries weigh approximately which will automatically charge 70 pounds apiece, this reduction 150, twelve volt, 80 ampere-hou- r, of handling from eight to two nickel cadmium' batteries times is quite significant. in two hours. EUGENE M. CHRISTENSEN, Field Power Section, pushing the button which wUl result in 50 charged nickel cadmium batteries. The batteries will be completely charged in less than two hours. EUGENE M. CHRISTENSEN analyzing a battery's charging characteristics. He is using one of the new Automatic Nickel Cadmium Battery Chargers which is a part-othe equipment in the Maintenance Room of the Charging Facility. In the background is one of the new Load Banks which can be used to analyze a battery's discharge characteristics. i..-vr.- g DIESEL gasoline truck, lies strewn across part of Willow WRECKAGE OF TWO-TOto- after Trailer Court, August 10 while coming through Johnson's Pass wrecking Springs ward Dugwav. Hie driver trf tlie truck, Uwi L. San-i- was seriously injured and is now rcratTngiu Holy C- Hospital in Ml I,ke City. A total of WOO gallon, of gaso- line was spilled over the area, s r- t SFC MELY L. GABA is congratulated by Colonel Arthur Nieto for his '1 for a tliree-vea- r cently. SFC Gaba U-- re- - s J