Mechanism

A structural element under the cavity-bath architecture is a load-bearing block, a substrate block, a column section, a wall panel, whose interior has been cast or molded with multiple discrete cavities. Each cavity is sealed at its ports against the surrounding concrete or ceramic matrix, lined with the appropriate electrochemical interfaces, and filled with electrolyte and electrode material per the disclosed cell chemistry. Where a single-cavity element would expose two terminals (an anode and a cathode lead) at the element's exterior, a multi-cavity element exposes a richer terminal set: at minimum, the aggregate output of the configured array, and optionally, individual taps on each cavity to support measurement, fault isolation, and reconfiguration.

The mechanism by which the array yields useful electrical behavior at the element level is a function of the internal interconnection topology. In a parallel composition, the anode terminals of every cavity are bussed together and the cathode terminals likewise; the resulting output voltage equals the per-cavity voltage and the output current capacity equals the sum of per-cavity capacities. In a series composition, the cathode terminal of cavity n is electrically connected to the anode terminal of cavity n+1, with the open ends of the chain becoming the element terminals; the output voltage equals n times the per-cavity voltage. The disclosure cites the canonical example of ten 1-volt cells in series producing a 10-volt element-level output, and contemplates similar stacking up to the dielectric limits of the inter-cavity insulation.

Operating Parameters

Cavity count per element is bounded below by manufacturing economy and above by structural integrity: the element body must retain enough load-bearing cross section after cavity formation to meet its structural rating. For an 8×8×16-inch CMU-class block, embodiments with four to sixteen cavities are practical; for larger column sections, cavity counts in the dozens are achievable. Per-cavity voltages reflect the electrochemistry, typically 1 to 3 volts for the supercapacitor-class cells of the disclosure, and per-cavity capacity scales with cavity volume. A 10-cavity series array of 1-volt cells produces a 10-volt element output; a 16-cavity parallel array of the same cells produces a 1-volt output with sixteen times the current capacity; a 4-by-4 mixed array produces 4 volts at four times the per-cavity current.

The internal connections that implement these compositions are routed through the rebar network already required for the element's structural function. Rebar in cavity-bath construction performs double duty as load-carrying steel and as a sheltered conduit for cell-to-cell wiring; insulated conductors are pre-attached or threaded along rebar runs and terminate at the cavity ports. This dual-use approach avoids the need for a separate wiring channel through the element body and preserves the structural load path. Insulation rating is set by the maximum series-stacked voltage the element will produce, with appropriate margin for manufacturing variation.

A representative parameter table illustrates the design space. For a CMU-class block with a six-cavity array of 1-volt cells, a pure-parallel configuration outputs 1 volt at six times the per-cavity current; a pure-series configuration outputs 6 volts at the per-cavity current; a 2-by-3 mixed array (two parallel branches of three series cavities) outputs 3 volts at twice the per-cavity current; and a 3-by-2 mixed array outputs 2 volts at three times the per-cavity current. The choice among these configurations is made at manufacture and is fixed in the rebar-routed wiring; reconfigurable embodiments insert solid-state switching at each cavity boundary to admit runtime selection at the cost of switching loss and switch reliability burden.

Alternative Embodiments

Two principal variants are disclosed for parallel composition. In the shared-electrolyte-plenum variant, the cavities of a parallel group are connected by a small electrolyte channel cast into the element body, so that all cavities draw from a common electrolyte reservoir. This simplifies refresh and rebalance operations because a single port on the element exterior services the entire group. In the independent-isolation variant, each cavity is hydraulically and electrically isolated, sharing only the bussed external terminals; this admits per-cavity fault isolation, since a failure or contamination event in one cavity cannot propagate to its neighbors. The choice between variants is driven by the target service profile: shared plenums favor low-maintenance bulk storage; independent isolation favors high-availability and high-reliability deployments.

Series compositions admit similar variation. A pure-series array maximizes element voltage at the cost of fault sensitivity, since a single failed cavity can interrupt the chain. A series-parallel mixed array, for example, four parallel groups of three series cavities, trades some peak voltage for graceful degradation, since failure of one cavity drops one parallel branch without taking the element offline. Embodiments with reconfigurable interconnect, in which solid-state switches at each cavity boundary admit runtime selection of series, parallel, or bypass, are contemplated for elements deployed in service profiles where the optimal topology varies with state of charge or load.

Composition Of The Array

A multi-cavity array decomposes into four cooperating composition layers. The first is the cavity itself: a sealed electrochemical unit with anode, cathode, electrolyte, and membrane, exposing terminals at its ports. The second is the inter-cavity connection layer: insulated conductors threaded along rebar, terminated at cavity ports, implementing the series, parallel, or mixed topology selected at manufacture. The third is the per-cavity attestation layer: each cavity is provisioned at manufacture with a credentialed identity that allows it to report its measured capacity, state of charge, and health to the element's local controller. The fourth is the per-element aggregator: a small embedded controller that combines the per-cavity attestations, computes the element's aggregate capacity and voltage, and publishes that aggregate over the building's discovery bus.

These four layers compose with strict containment. Per-cavity behavior is observable to the element aggregator but not directly to the building controller; per-element behavior is observable to the building controller but not directly to the grid. This containment is essential to the disclosure's scaling story: a building containing thousands of cavities does not present a thousands-deep dispatch problem to its electrical system, because intermediate aggregation reduces the dispatched unit count by the cavity-per-element factor at every level of the hierarchy.

Fault-handling within the array follows the containment hierarchy. A cavity that fails self-test reports its degraded status to the per-element aggregator; the aggregator decides whether to tolerate the fault (in parallel topologies, by absorbing the lost capacity), bypass the cavity (in series topologies with bypass switches), or take the entire element out of service (in pure-series topologies without bypass). The decision is reported upward to the building controller as a revised aggregate capacity figure rather than as a per-cavity fault, which preserves the building controller's view of the population at the element granularity rather than the cavity granularity.

Prior-Art Context

Multi-cell modules are pervasive in the battery and supercapacitor literature; what distinguishes the present disclosure is the locating of the multi-cell composition inside a load-bearing structural element rather than inside a discrete electrical enclosure. Standard battery modules are electrically dense but structurally inert; they are added to a building as additional dead load and consume floor area. Structural-battery research (sandwich panels, structural composites with embedded electrolyte) addresses the integration question but typically presents a single-cell or single-stack architecture rather than a configurable cavity array. The cavity-bath array architecture occupies the intersection: it offers the topological flexibility of a discrete module and the structural-integration discipline of a building element, with the per-element aggregation layer added to make the resulting many-unit population tractable for building-scale dispatch.

Disclosure Scope

Provisional 64/050,895 discloses, in the relevant section, the placement of multiple discrete electrochemical cavities within a single load-bearing structural element, the arrangement of those cavities into parallel, series, or mixed compositions through internal cell-to-cell connections threaded along the element's rebar network, the choice between shared-electrolyte-plenum and independent-isolation variants of parallel composition, the per-cavity credentialed attestation of capacity and the per-element aggregation of those attestations, and the composition of the per-element aggregate with the building's electrical-aggregation primitive at the next layer up. The disclosure encompasses equivalent topologies, equivalent attestation mechanisms, and equivalent aggregator implementations, provided the cavity-element-building containment hierarchy is preserved.