Hello everyone,
A colleague and I are currently simulating a solid-state battery cathode consisting of NCM + LPSCl in BatteryDict (GeoDict 2024). Unfortunately, the charging simulation fails immediately with the following error:
Failed to solve the InitialPotential-system!
BESTmeso returned with error code 1
The battery report additionally states:
Charge rate: 0.1 C
Applied current: 0 A
Transferred charge: 0 Ah
Maximum cell capacity: 0.00078 Ah
However, the effective transport properties of the microstructure seem to be available:
-Electronic conductivity of the cathode is non-zero.
-Ionic conductivity through the LPSCl phase is also non-zero.
Therefore, I would have expected the simulation to start.
Some additional information:
-Cathode: NCM + LPSCl composite
-Anode: Lithium
-The structure was successfully imported and BatteryDict identifies a finite cell capacity.
Has anyone encountered this error before?
This is what the error file says:
15:58:27.787: [BEST:er] Starting discretization...
15:58:27.840: [BEST:er] Function Norm ||F(x)||_2: 0.0264661
15:58:27.841: [BEST:er] Convergence criterion NewtonIncrementMaxComponentChange: error: 0.016342 relativeTolerance: 1e-05
15:58:27.841: [BEST:er] NewtonSolver Error: Maximum number of iterations reached!
15:58:27.841: [BEST:er] Failed to solve the InitialPotential-system!
15:58:27.841: [BEST:er] Writing output-file of the last successful timestep...
15:58:27.842: [Error] [BEST:er : Error] BesterStoppingException occurred in main() while initializing or solving: Failed to solve the InitialPotential-system!
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you very much!
Finn and Caroline445_571_1.5.png
Hello Finn and Caroline,
GeoDict 2024 does not directly support the handling of solid electrolytes. It can work however, if you follow the steps outlined in the video tutorial How to model an All Solid State Battery (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOUIyTYmOVg).
Did you set the transference number of the electrolyte to 0.99?
For the LIR solver you can use 1, but for the BEST solvers you need to use 0.99 in GeoDict 2024.
Did you try to disable the porosity of the separator or to reassign the separator to solid electrolyte?
Did this problem also occur when doing a fully resolved simulation using the LIR solver?
Since GeoDict 2025, solid electrolytes are directly supported in the material database and in BatteryDict as described here:
https://geodict-userguide.math2market.de/2026/batterydict_chargebattery_allsolidstatebatteries.html
Thus, we would highly recommend to upgrade to GeoDict 2026 if you are researching solid state batteries.
Best regards,
Janine