{"actors":["Battery-pack systems architect","Thermal design engineer","Battery-management-system engineer","Reliability engineer","Independent safety reviewer","Bench-test technician","Cells and modules treated as ensemble members"],"affected_objective":"Thermal safety and cell-life consistency across a battery pack without sacrificing acceptable pack-level temperature regulation.","arm":"COMMON_P1","authority_safety":{"authorized_first_step":"The battery test lead may run an instrumented, current-limited bench cycle and offline analysis using the existing approved duty profile; the step may only measure temperatures, coolant conditions, and controller commands.","decision_authority":"The battery safety review board retains authority to define excursion thresholds, approve any coolant-path modification, change controller logic, or release the design.","excluded_actions":["No automatic derating, cell isolation, controller retuning, or coolant-hardware change based solely on the proposed analysis.","No inference of an individual cell's internal condition from pack-average temperature.","No operation outside the existing current, voltage, temperature, pressure, and containment limits.","No removal or weakening of existing thermal trips, fuses, interlocks, or emergency shutdowns.","No use of cell or module labels as evidence of supplier fault without an independent causal investigation."],"halt_rollback":"Abort the bench cycle under the existing safety limits or upon sensor disagreement, coolant leakage, unexpected temperature acceleration, or loss of containment monitoring. Return the rig to its approved baseline configuration, quarantine the run data, and require safety review before resumption."},"baseline":"Design acceptance and thermal-control tuning use a stable pack-average temperature over an approved duty cycle, supplemented by existing absolute-temperature trips. Individual sensor traces may be logged, but their distribution, spatial clustering, and persistence are not part of the acceptance decision.","candidate_id":"ensemble_and_population_level_equilibrium_versus_individual_level_heterogeneity__engineering_design__COMMON_P1","causal_chain":["An approved repeated duty cycle produces heat across the battery-cell ensemble.","Differences in coolant-path resistance, contact conductance, position, and local electrical loading create heterogeneous cell-temperature trajectories.","The thermal controller regulates pump or fan effort using a pack-level temperature indicator that remains stable over the evaluation window.","The aggregation rule compresses simultaneous hot and cool cell trajectories into an acceptable pack average.","Mean-based acceptance therefore does not trigger investigation of persistent spatial clusters or tail excursions that remain below existing absolute trips.","Repeated local thermal exposure can impose uneven degradation or reduce safety margin while the pack-level indicator continues to appear equilibrated.","Pairing the macro indicator with predeclared distributional and spatial checks identifies whether action belongs at a particular module or coolant branch rather than at the whole-pack setpoint.","A reviewer-approved local balancing change can then be evaluated while monitoring both pack-average stability and cell-level outcomes."],"cell_id":"ensemble_and_population_level_equilibrium_versus_individual_level_heterogeneity__engineering_design","consequence":"A pack can pass its aggregate thermal criterion while a persistent subset of cells undergoes materially different thermal exposure, leaving localized degradation or reduced safety margin unaddressed and potentially prompting an unnecessarily global redesign when the cause is local.","diversity_from_prior_proposals":"No comparison with prior proposals was performed under runtime isolation; this candidate is internally distinguished by applying the archetype to spatially clustered cell temperatures beneath a valid battery-pack thermal equilibrium and by coupling diagnosis to reviewer-gated local coolant balancing.","experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp13_second_slot_policy60_20260806","intervention":"Add a heterogeneity-aware thermal acceptance layer to pack validation. Define every instrumented cell or module as an ensemble member and the approved duty-cycle plateau as the equilibrium window; retain the existing pack-average indicator, document its weighting rule, and display it beside cell-temperature quantiles, maximum-minus-median spread, trajectory persistence, and a physical-position map. Predeclare an excursion rule requiring both magnitude and persistence, then route a flagged spatial cluster to engineering review. The reviewer may authorize a reversible local coolant-balancing shim, manifold insert, or interface correction for an affected branch and repeat the same cycle. Acceptance requires that the local criterion improve without violating pack-average regulation, pressure-drop limits, or existing safety constraints.","mechanism_mapping":[{"counterfactual_removal":"Without the joint view, reviewers again see the stable pack mean separately from cell traces and can overlook their simultaneous divergence.","mechanism_slug":"distributional_dashboard","role":"Shows the pack-average equilibrium beside cell quantiles, tails, spatial position, and persistent trajectory excursions."},{"counterfactual_removal":"Without an explicit translation, it is unclear how cold and hot members offset one another or whether sensor weighting changes the macro claim.","mechanism_slug":"micro_macro_crosswalk","role":"Documents how cell or module temperatures are weighted and aggregated into the pack indicator and identifies the spatial information lost."},{"counterfactual_removal":"Without decomposition, random sensor noise, transient within-cell variation, module-to-module structure, and coolant-branch effects remain conflated.","mechanism_slug":"variance_decomposition_table","role":"Separates temporal, within-module, between-module, spatial-branch, and estimated measurement contributions."},{"counterfactual_removal":"Without a persistence-qualified alert, a stable mean can continue to mask a recurring local cluster, while isolated noisy samples may receive disproportionate attention.","mechanism_slug":"subgroup_excursion_alert","role":"Flags predeclared module or coolant-branch excursions only when both magnitude and persistence conditions are met."},{"counterfactual_removal":"Without the paired rerun, a local change could merely move heat elsewhere or destabilize the pack-level equilibrium.","mechanism_slug":"equilibrium_stress_test","role":"Repeats the approved duty cycle after a reversible, reviewer-approved local correction and checks macro stability plus the full cell distribution."}],"nearest_rivals":["A general thermal-uniformity redesign that attempts to minimize all cell-to-cell variation without preserving the distinction between harmless variation and consequential persistent excursions.","An aggregation-bias correction that replaces the pack-average metric because its weighting is invalid; here the working premise is that the pack average may be valid for pack-level regulation but incomplete for member-level acceptance.","An equilibrium-restoration controller that changes global pump, fan, or setpoint behavior because pack temperature is unstable; here the pack-level equilibrium remains stable.","A sensor-calibration or variance-reduction program that treats observed spread as measurement error rather than testing for spatially structured physical heterogeneity.","Existing absolute-temperature protection that trips only after a cell crosses a hard safety boundary rather than identifying persistent sub-trip exposure beneath a stable pack mean."],"negative_tests":{"intervention_falsifier":"The intervention is falsified for this design if repeated synchronized measurements show no persistent or spatially structured cell-temperature heterogeneity beyond characterized sensor uncertainty, or if reviewer-approved local balancing does not change the flagged trajectories while controlling for duty cycle and ambient conditions.","problem_falsifier":"The inferred problem is falsified if pack-level acceptance already requires representative cell-level trajectory, tail, persistence, and spatial-cluster criteria with enforced local review, or if the supposedly stable pack-average indicator is itself unstable or invalid, making equilibrium restoration or aggregation correction the actual problem.","risks":["Additional sensors or analysis may create false precision if calibration uncertainty and missing cells are not reported.","Post hoc subgroup slicing can generate spurious clusters; partitions and persistence rules must be declared before the test.","A local coolant restriction or diversion may relocate heat, increase pressure drop, or impair another module.","Temperature position data could be misused to assign supplier blame without evidence of causation.","Optimizing for uniformity could suppress benign differences or add mass, cost, and hydraulic complexity without safety benefit.","A distributional layer could create false reassurance if uninstrumented cells differ systematically from instrumented cells."] ,"strongest_counterevidence":"Existing cell-level hard trips may already prevent safety-relevant consequences, and observed temperature spread may be transient sensor uncertainty rather than persistent physical exposure; either finding would weaken the case for a new acceptance layer or local flow intervention."},"next_evidence_step":"On one existing instrumented development pack, execute one approved, current-limited duty cycle without changing hardware or control logic. Freeze the ensemble membership, equilibrium window, aggregation weights, spatial partitions, uncertainty bounds, and excursion rule before examining results. Produce a synchronized pack-mean trace, cell quantiles, persistence table, and physical cluster map. The bounded decision is only whether a repeat run and reviewer-designed reversible local-balancing test are warranted.","observable_state":"During the nominal steady portion of an approved battery duty cycle, the pack-average temperature and controller demand remain within their existing stable bands, while synchronized cell or module traces may show persistent upper-tail excursions concentrated by physical position or coolant branch. Observable inputs include sensor identity and calibration status, cell temperature versus time, module location, branch inlet and outlet temperature, coolant pressure or flow where available, ambient condition, electrical loading, and pump or fan command.","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","problem":"A battery pack is declared thermally acceptable because its average temperature reaches and maintains the specified operating band during a repeated duty cycle. That valid pack-level result is being interpreted as though each cell experiences the same thermal condition. Spatial differences in coolant distribution and thermal contact can instead produce persistent hot modules and compensating cool modules whose trajectories disappear in the average, leaving local degradation or reduced safety margin invisible until a hard trip or later failure evidence appears.","proposal_index":1,"remaining_contrastive_claim":"The candidate's testable distinction is that a valid, stable pack-average temperature can remain suitable for pack-level regulation while being insufficient for cell- or module-level acceptance; persistent spatial tail exposure should therefore trigger reviewer-gated local investigation rather than automatic rejection of the macro metric or global controller retuning.","revision_record":{"claim_changes":[],"conceptual_changes":[],"evidence_changes":[],"operational_changes":[],"parent_version":null,"progress_targets_addressed":["Defined a concrete engineering ensemble, macro equilibrium indicator, microstate distribution, aggregation rule, and level boundary.","Specified a targeted intervention that preserves macro regulation while addressing persistent local excursions.","Added human decision authority, existing-limit safeguards, falsifiers, counterevidence, risks, and a bounded measurement-only first step."]},"schema_version":1,"structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"Ensemble Frame","domain_realization":"All instrumented cells or modules in one defined battery-pack build under one approved duty profile, ambient condition, and predeclared steady operating window."},{"archetype_element":"Macro Equilibrium Indicator","domain_realization":"The existing weighted pack-average temperature, together with stable controller demand, during the duty-cycle plateau."},{"archetype_element":"Microstate Variability Profile","domain_realization":"Cell-level temperature trajectories, quantiles, spread, persistence above a predeclared local criterion, and module-level distributions."},{"archetype_element":"Aggregation Translation Rule","domain_realization":"The documented sensor-to-module and module-to-pack weighting that produces the pack-average trace; it preserves central thermal state but discards spatial identity, tails, and trajectory persistence."},{"archetype_element":"Level-of-Analysis Boundary","domain_realization":"The pack average supports a claim about whole-pack thermal regulation only; it does not establish that every cell or module has acceptable exposure. Conversely, one cell excursion does not by itself disprove pack-level equilibrium."},{"archetype_element":"Heterogeneity Relevance Test","domain_realization":"Compare magnitude and persistence against calibration uncertainty, known operating variation, degradation-relevant engineering limits, and existing safety margins before classifying heterogeneity as harmless or actionable."},{"archetype_element":"Subgroup and Locality Map","domain_realization":"Map cells by module, depth, manifold branch, coolant-flow order, busbar proximity, and boundary position to test whether excursions form physical clusters."},{"archetype_element":"Multi-Level Feedback Design","domain_realization":"Retain pack-level control monitoring while adding persistence-qualified local review and, only after approval, a reversible branch-level balancing trial."},{"archetype_element":"Representative Case Guardrail","domain_realization":"Do not let either one nominal cell or one extreme cell substitute for the full synchronized distribution; report ensemble coverage and missing sensors."},{"archetype_element":"Equity or Risk Threshold","domain_realization":"Use predeclared engineering exposure and persistence criteria, with measurement uncertainty, to distinguish ordinary cell variation from reduced local safety margin or degradation concern."}],"title":"Distribution-Aware Thermal Acceptance and Local Coolant Balancing for Battery Packs","version":0}