Researchers from Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Instruments and Forming Expertise IWU have teamed up with companions within the COOLBat joint analysis challenge to develop next-generation battery enclosures for EVs.
The COOLBat challenge focuses on making lighter enclosures to scale back energy consumption and improve driving vary by combining particular person techniques, packing extra capabilities right into a smaller set up house and utilizing new heat-conductive supplies and bio-based flame-retardant coatings.
The researchers have explored combining particular person techniques within the enclosure that beforehand carried out thermal and mechanical capabilities individually. The cooling unit operate is mixed with that of underride safety in a single element, the bottom plate.
Aluminum foam inside the bottom plate absorbs the impression vitality from stone impacts and accidents. Mixed with a phase-change materials (PCM), a type of wax that can be utilized to retailer and later launch thermal and cooling vitality, the aluminum foam additionally reduces the quantity of vitality wanted to chill the battery.
This configuration protects the battery cells from mechanical hundreds and overheating directly. A fluid flows by the channels, cooling the cells from beneath and from the edges. This reduces the electrical energy wanted to chill the cells and eliminates the necessity for cooling parts elsewhere within the car.
One of many goals of the challenge is to switch the heavy conductive pastes with ecofriendly heat-conductive supplies to attach the battery module for thermal functions. To do that, the researchers are utilizing a plasma course of to metallize open-pored reusable foams which can be then positioned within the areas between the battery and enclosure in pad kind.
A brand new flame-retardant coating utilized to the underside of the enclosure lid prevents fireplace from spreading from the battery cells beneath. The earlier metal enclosure lid has been changed with a brand new fiber composite lid, decreasing the element’s mass and making it doable to reuse the lid.
The researchers are utilizing the Mercedes-Benz EQS battery as a reference and technological demonstrator.
Future plans name for the challenge’s outcomes to be prolonged to different purposes and industries that use massive batteries, corresponding to in trains, plane and boats.
“We’re specializing in functionally built-in constructions. Duties that was dealt with by totally different modules contained in the battery are being built-in right into a single element—the bottom meeting, on this case—to shrink the set up house and streamline interfaces,” stated Rico Schmerler, a challenge supervisor and scientist within the Battery Techniques division at Fraunhofer IWU. “These base plates will present safety from overheating and avert harm to the battery core in case of an accident.”
Supply: Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Instruments and Forming Expertise IWU
