Module and / or pack, and battery system made thereof

Abstract

The present invention relates to a pack and / or a module which is based on elementary cells of cylindrical design and in which the elementary cells are electrically interconnected by a cell-contacting system in order to form series and parallel circuits, the two poles of each elementary cell (2) being contacted at a free upper face (7) of the module or pack (1). The invention also relates to a battery system which is made of said pack and / or module and which is provided as a device for supplying and for storing electrical energy. The aim of the invention is to provide a pack and / or module, through the use of which it is possible to implement customer-specific and / or application-specific solutions with unchanged safety standards easily and quickly, without the need to completely or at least substantially redevelop or redesign a battery system made of said pack and / or module. This is achieved in that a module and / or pack (1) consisting of more than one base pack having a fixed number of elementary cells (2) is arranged in a spatially predefined manner and is contacted with a base cell-contacting system (4a), electrical properties of the module and / or pack (1) being implemented by interconnecting a plurality of base cell-contacting systems (4a) of the plurality of base packs.

Description

[0001] MODULE AND / OR PACK AND BATTERY SYSTEM CONSTRUCTED THEREOF

[0002] The present invention relates to a module and / or a pack based on elementary cells of a cylindrical design or round cells, in which the elementary cells are arranged upright and are electrically connected to one another in series and parallel circuits by a cell contact system, and to a battery system constructed therefrom, which is intended as a device for energy output and for storage of electrical energy.

[0003] It is known from the prior art that a battery system comprises at least one battery module, wherein several battery modules can be combined to form a pack. In principle, different cell formats can be used in battery modules. Based, for example, on US 10 347 894 B2, the present invention focuses exclusively on a design of modules or packs that are based on elementary cylindrical cells or round cells due to the comparatively high number of connection poles in a relatively small area and the correspondingly many possible interconnections. Currently common cell formats are known, for example, under the designations 18650, 21700 and 46800.

[0004] Currently, a battery module is mainly developed with the individual cells connected in a fixed spatial arrangement for a voltage level of a specific application. This results in a specific cell contacting system as a result of a complex design and testing process, which can only be used for a given voltage level and cell connection. The state of the art for modules and packs based on such cells for a specific use in vehicles dictates that they generally have application-specific formats with the cells packed as densely as possible. Application-specific formats of modules or packs constructed from this are therefore generally only used in a single application and, if necessary,They are only used at one location in a given vehicle and may be arranged in the form of several modules distributed throughout a vehicle to improve space utilization.

[0005] The present invention therefore has the object of creating a module and / or a pack through the use of which customer- and / or application-specific solutions with regard to scalable capacity, current and / or voltage at external connection poles can be implemented more easily and quickly with unchanged safety without a complete or at least extensive new development or redesign of a battery system constructed from it.

[0006] This object is achieved according to the invention in a module and / or pack which is constructed on the basis of elementary cells of a cylindrical format, in which the elementary cells are electrically interconnected in series and parallel circuits by a cell contacting system, wherein contact is provided between both poles of each elementary cell on a free upper side of the module or pack, by the features of claim 1 in that the module and / or pack consists of more than one basic pack with a fixed number of elementary cells, which is arranged in a spatially predefined manner and is contacted by a basic cell contacting system, wherein electrical properties of the module and / or pack are realized by interconnecting a plurality of basic cell contacting systems. A battery system constructed accordingly is also a solution to this object.The current trend is towards greater flexibility and therefore faster adaptation of modules and packs to systems with different electrical and / or spatial configurations. As a solution to this, a module or pack according to the invention is characterized by high flexibility, which is marked by a simple change in the number, interconnection and / or arrangement of elementary storage cells connected to a basic cell contacting system, as will be explained in more detail below. According to the invention, an overall cell contacting system for producing desired electrical parameters of a battery system is divided into a number of interconnected basic cell contacting systems, which creates the possibility of adaptation to different electrical properties by changing the interconnection and / or adapting a number of basic cell contacting systems and the elementary storage cells connected thereto.A module or pack according to the invention can thus be adapted as flexibly as would otherwise only be possible within narrower limits using a cell-to-pack system.

[0007] A basic cell contact system connects elementary cells in a small sub-unit in parallel and / or series to provide the desired electrical properties at the terminals of the basic cell contact system. By connecting a number of such basic cell contact systems, determined by a given electrical power, in series and / or parallel, an overall cell contact system with the desired electrical properties of the module and / or pack is then created.

[0008] Preferably, the basic cell contact systems are all of the same type and are arranged in the same direction, having a basic orientation. In one embodiment of the invention, however, at least individual basic cell contact systems are aligned rotated by 90° and / or 180° relative to this basic orientation with the elementary storage cells connected to them, in order to form higher-level interconnections of the subgroups with a basic cell contact system between the relevant basic cell contact systems, e.g., a series interconnection instead of a parallel interconnection, using the shortest possible electrical connectors.

[0009] In a preferred development of the invention, cell monitoring circuits or CSC elements are connected via the basic cell contacting systems in such a way that a cell monitoring circuit is connected to a predetermined number of serially connected elementary memory cells, in particular to 12 elementary memory cells.

[0010] Advantageous configurations of the basic central processing unit (CCS) with regard to 12 CSC terminals include a number of serially connected memory cells in a basic cell contacting system that amounts to 3, 4, 6, and 12 as integer divisors of 12, provided that one of the aforementioned CSC types is intended for use. This allows cell monitoring circuits to be used as effectively as possible, which advantageously minimizes their total number.

[0011] Advantageously, basic cell contact systems are provided with a 6s l2p, 12s l2p, or 6s 6p interconnection. These designs are optimally suited for use with a known CSC element to create a wide range of different modules or packs with variations in structure and electrical properties.

[0012] By implementing an approach according to the invention, there are degrees of freedom in the selection of suitable interconnections at cell and module level for constructing a customized battery system with minimal effort. Within the scope of the present invention, the degrees of freedom at cell level are optimally utilized to create a gradation of electrical properties, not least because of the numerous poles at cell level. The only component of a module or pack that has to be adapted to a particular specification of the electrical properties, i.e. voltage level, rated current and electrical power, is therefore the cell contacting system, since according to the invention a single design of a basic cell contacting system is constructed from a plurality of interconnections.

[0013] In summary, a solution according to the invention makes it possible to design modules and packs made of cylindrical lithium-ion batteries according to customer- or application-specific specifications without having to carry out a completely new development or extensive redesign. A customer-specific design is determined in particular by the available installation space in the passenger car sector. The approach using a basic cell contact system with connected, similar storage cells as the basis for scaling electrical properties is very advantageous because it enables considerable cost advantages to be achieved with a generally justifiable grading of electrical properties by scaling the number of one basic cell contact system with very little effort.

[0014] Further features and advantages of embodiments of the invention are explained in more detail below with reference to exemplary embodiments based on the drawings. In these, a schematic representation shows:

[0015] Figure 1: a perspective view of a tray with a base element and an outer frame adjoining an edge and ending in an end seal as the basis of a pack or module;

[0016] Figure 2: a view according to Figure 1 of the tub which is progressively and uniformly filled with elementary cylindrical storage cells aligned parallel to one another and arranged upright;

[0017] Figure 3: a plan view of a number of elementary cells contacted by a basic cell contacting system, aligned parallel to one another and arranged upright;

[0018] Figure 4: a first interconnection of several basic cell contacting systems according to Figure 3 to form a module or pack;

[0019] Figure 5 : a second interconnection of several basic cell contact systems according to Figure 3 to form a module or pack and

[0020] Figure 6: a third type of interconnection of several basic cell contact systems according to Figure 3 as an alternative to the embodiment of Figure 5.

[0021] The same reference numerals are used for the same elements throughout the various illustrations in the drawing. Without limiting the invention, a flat support as a cuboid body is shown and described below only for one use of exemplary embodiments of the invention in a battery module with cylindrical cells designed for electrically powered vehicles. However, it is obvious to a person skilled in the art that adaptations to other spatial shapes are also possible in the same way, moving away from flat ones, for example to a polygonal or even curved support, for improved utilization of the available installation space. Furthermore, adaptations to applications outside of use in terrestrial vehicles are easily possible, in particular for applications in stationary storage devices.

[0022] Across the sequence of figures described below, a module and / or pack 1 is constructed on the basis of a number of elementary cells 2 of a cylindrical format, wherein these cells 2 are electrically interconnected in a carrier 3 by a cell contacting system 4 in the form of series and / or parallel circuits.

[0023] Figure 1 shows a perspective view of a carrier 3 of a module or pack 1 designed as a trough, which is subsequently filled with elementary cells 2 fixed therein and closed off with a cell contacting system 4. The carrier 3 is provided with a seal 6 running on an edge 5 designed as a frame. The carrier 3 creates, among other things, by means of struts and stiffening elements, a mechanically resilient hold for a predetermined number of elementary storage cells 2 of a cylindrical format, which are provided in the carrier 3 with a parallel arrangement. Contact is made between the two poles N, P of each elementary cell 2 in an installed position of the cells 2 on a free upper side 7 of the module or pack 1.A height H of the support 3 is adapted to a length of the elementary cells 2 of a cylindrical format to be used so that the free upper side 7 of the module or pack 1 results after the cells 2 have been fitted.

[0024] The illustration in Figure 2 shows a view according to Figure 1 of the carrier 3, which is progressively filled with over 500 elementary cylindrical storage cells 2, aligned parallel to one another and arranged in the same direction. For the purpose of better illustration, a central region of the carrier 3 is shown without any memory cells 2. In a next step, the electrical properties of this module or pack 1 are determined by the interconnection of the elementary cells 2, which is defined by a cell contact system 4 connected to the terminals of the elementary storage cells 2.

[0025] According to the state of the art, any subsequent changes to the electrical properties of this module or pack 1 or its external spatial shape, e.g., in response to changed spatial conditions in a particular application, require at least a redesign, if not a completely new development, of the cell contact system 4 with subsequent validation testing. The following examples illustrate and describe possibilities for flexible adaptation without redesign or even new development of a cell contact system 4.

[0026] Figure 3 shows a plan view of a number of 72 elementary storage cells 2 interconnected by an indicated basic cell contact system 4a, arranged upright and parallel to one another in the same direction. By means of this basic cell contact system 4a, six storage cells 2 are connected in series, as indicated by the dashed zigzag line s, with twelve such series strands being connected in parallel, which is indicated by the dashed line p. Using the classic 21700 round cells, this basic cell contact system 4a results in a 6s l2p unit with an electrical output of 1.25 kWh at 24V voltage at connection poles 8 as a type of subgroup.The number of elementary storage cells 2 indicated in Figure 2 is thus divided into subgroups via basic cell contact systems 4a, the interconnection of which by interconnecting the basic cell contact systems 4a to form an overall cell contact system 4 has the desired electrical properties of the module or pack 1.

[0027] The illustration in Figure 4 shows a first interconnection of several basic cell contact systems 4a with storage cells 2 connected to them according to Figure 3 to form a module or pack 1, which here comprises six basic cell contact systems 4a. For this purpose, two basic cell contact systems 4a are connected in series with one another in a basic orientation as shown in Figure 3, and this arrangement is combined with two similarly constructed arrangements in a parallel circuit with a total of 432 storage cells 2 to form a module or pack 1, as indicated by the three arrows in Figure 4. This module or pack 1 with a 12 s36p interconnection supplies an electrical output of 7.3 kWh at an output voltage of 48V using 21700 round cells.

[0028] A second interconnection of six basic cell contacting systems 4a according to Figure 3 to form a module also with 432 storage cells of the 21700 design is shown in Figure 5. Again, two basic cell contacting systems 4a are interconnected in series, whereby, in contrast to the embodiment of Figure 4, the basic cell contacting systems 4a of the second series connection have been rotated by 180° relative to the base alignment on the arrangement of 2 x 72 storage cells 2 before contacting. This leads to a reversal of the polarity of these two basic cell contacting systems 4a, as indicated by the arrows in Figure 5. In a series connection of the 3 x 2 basic cell contact systems 4a with storage cells 2 connected to them, a 36s l2p connection with 150V is realized at the poles of the module or pack 1, without e.g.an arrangement of the 432 memory cells would have been changed or some other change would have been made to the components.

[0029] In a third type of interconnection of six basic cell contact systems 4a according to Figure 3, in the embodiment according to Figure 6, as an alternative to the embodiment in Figure 5, all six basic cell contact systems 4a with their respective 72 elementary storage cells 2 have been rotated by 90°. By this identical alignment of all basic cell contact systems 4a, a 36s l2p interconnection is again realized in series interconnection. In the illustration in Figure 6, an external shape of the module or pack 1 from Figure 5 is shown to show that by the uniform structure with identical 90° rotation of all basic cell contact systems 4a in the embodiment in Figure 6, a slimmer, but also somewhat longer external shape was achieved in this module or pack 1.Within the scope of the present invention, such changes to an external shape can therefore be implemented in a simple manner, which can be very advantageous when adapted to the installation space available in each case.

[0030] In a manner not further illustrated in the drawing, a 24s24p interconnection of 576 elementary storage cells 2 for a 100V round cell module with 10 kWh of electrical power can be realized without further development effort using the basic cell contact system 4a with connected storage cells 2 according to Figure 3. For this purpose, two series circuits consisting of four basic cell contact systems 4a each are interconnected in parallel. Furthermore, a respective structure with connections to cell monitoring circuits CSC, which are superordinate to the basic cell contact systems 4a, is designed such that the same CSC can be used across a respective module or pack. Accordingly, one CSC is provided for each 12s string or for each twelve elementary memory cells 2 connected in series, whereby such a 12s string represents the maximum number of elementary memory cells to be monitored in a widely used CSC type.For two substrings with 6s, this results in a maximum occupancy of 12s of a CSC. Therefore, two CSCs are required for a 24s string, and three CSCs for a 36s string. In the basic cell contact system discussed above, with a 6sl2p interconnection of 72 elementary storage cells, a total of six CSCs are optimally utilized. This means that only one CSC type is used throughout the module or pack, with each CSC being utilized optimally.

[0031] As an alternative to the example of a 6sl2p basic cell contact system 4a shown and described above, other basic dimensions of basic cell contact systems 4a are also possible, which also represent other interconnection options, such as 12sl2p or 6s6p. Furthermore, instead of the classic 21700 round cells considered in the present embodiments, other cell formats can also be used for higher electrical outputs per elementary storage cell 2, such as 46800 or 46120 round cells.

[0032] A flexible and variably usable basic cell contacting system 4a has been described above using various embodiments, which realizes different electrical interconnections by different alignment and positioning over an arrangement of elementary storage cells 2.

[0033] A special feature is that the basic cell contacting system can also be used rotated by 90° or 180° and can be installed in a module or pack with multiple series or parallel connections to form an overall cell contacting system. In this way, different module connections can be realized by an appropriate number and orientation as well as connection of basically similarly constructed basic cell contacting system units 4a. Thus, within the scope of the present invention, it is particularly possible to realize modules with regard to their output voltages and electrical power in a gradation predetermined by a design of a basic cell contacting system 4a without new development or redesign, with significantly reduced validation effort and optimized component utilization.Thus, a basic cell contact system 4a forms the basis for more degrees of freedom in a module structure that can be adapted to specific conditions and requirements. Thus, even a flexible cell-to-pack solution can be realized using an approach according to the invention.

[0034] Reference symbol list Module and / or pack Elementary cell of a cylindrical format Carrier / frame Cell contact system

[0035] 4a Basic cell contact system edge seal free top of the carrier ( 3 ) of the module / pack ( 1 ) connection pole of a basic cell contact system 4a

[0036] CSC Cell Supervision Circuit / cell monitoring circuit

[0037] H height of the edge ( 5 ) of the carrier ( 3 ) p parallel connection of elementary memory cells 2 s serial connection of elementary memory cells 2

Claims

Claims 1. Module and / or pack (1) based on elementary cells (2) of a cylindrical design, in which the elementary cells (2) are arranged upright and are electrically connected to one another in series and parallel circuits by a cell contacting system (4), wherein contacting of both poles of each elementary cell (2) is provided on a free upper side (7) of the module or pack (1), characterized in that the module and / or pack (1) is made up of more than one basic pack with a fixed number of elementary cells (2) and is contacted with a basic cell contacting system (4a), wherein electrical properties of the module and / or pack (1) are realized by interconnecting several basic cell contacting systems (4a) of the several basic packs.

2. Module and / or pack according to the preceding claim, characterized in that an overall cell contacting system (4) with the desired electrical properties of the module and / or pack (1) is realized by a serial and / or parallel connection of a number of basic cell contacting systems (4a) determined by a predetermined electrical power.

3. Module and / or pack according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that at least individual base cell contacting systems (4a) are rotated by 90° and / or 180° relative to a base alignment of a base cell contacting system (4a) with the elementary memory cells (2) are arranged in a rotated manner.

4. Module and / or pack according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that cell monitoring circuits (CSC) are connected via the basic cell contacting systems (4a) in such a way that a cell monitoring circuit (CSC) is connected to a predetermined number of serially connected elementary memory cells (2), in particular to 12 elementary memory cells (2).

5. Module and / or pack according to the preceding claim, characterized in that a number of 2, 3, 4, 6 or 12 serially connected memory cells (2) is provided in a basic cell contacting system (4a) when a cell monitoring circuit is designed for monitoring 12 elementary memory cells (2).

6. Module and / or pack according to the preceding claim, characterized in that basic cell contact systems (4a) are provided with a 6sl2p, 12sl2p or 6s 6p interconnection.

7. Battery system which is provided as a device for supplying and storing electrical energy, characterized in that the battery system comprises a plurality of packs and / or modules (1) according to one of the preceding claims, which are electrically connected or interconnected in a series and / or parallel configuration.

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