Battery Pack Lower Protective Cover With Impact-Absorbing Buffer Parts
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Solution Overview
Problem
Electric vehicles face a high risk of battery damage due to impacts on the lower portion, such as striking debris or obstacles, which existing technologies fail to adequately protect.
Innovation Solution
A battery pack with a lower protective cover featuring a detachable lower panel and buffer parts that absorb impacts, including hollow pipe-shaped buffer parts with concave and convex surfaces, designed to deform and absorb energy, and cooling passages that do not contact the panel to prevent damage to the battery cells.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Strength
If a solid lower protective cover is used, then impact protection is improved, but weight increases and cooling efficiency decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The lower protective cover incorporates a foam material with numerous closed cells distributed throughout its structure. This porous foam material provides impact absorption and protection while maintaining low weight, as the cellular structure reduces material density while preserving protective functionality.
Solution Approach 2:
The lower protective cover serves multiple functions simultaneously: it provides impact protection through the foam structure, enables cooling through passages that allow fluid flow, and maintains structural integrity through the rigid outer shell. The cover integrates protection, cooling, and structural support into a single component.
2Strength
If a solid lower protective cover is used, then impact protection is improved, but cooling efficiency decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The lower protective cover includes cooling passages that segment the internal space, allowing cooling fluid to flow through defined channels. These passages are formed within the foam material, creating a network that distributes cooling fluid across the battery module surface while maintaining the protective cover's structural integrity.
Solution Approach 2:
The lower protective cover simultaneously provides impact protection through its foam structure and enables cooling through integrated passages. The multi-functional design allows the same component to fulfill both protective and thermal management roles without compromising either function.
3Strength
If buffer parts are added to absorb impact, then impact protection is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The buffer parts are integrated directly into the lower protective cover structure, merging the impact absorption function with the protective cover itself. The foam material and buffer parts form a unified structure that provides both protection and impact mitigation without requiring separate attachment components.
Solution Approach 2:
The foam material with closed cells provides inherent buffer and impact absorption capabilities as part of its material structure. The cellular foam compresses under impact, providing energy absorption without requiring additional mechanical buffer components, thus simplifying the overall structure.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Effectively protects battery cells from lower impacts by absorbing and distributing the force of collisions, minimizing damage to the battery pack components and ensuring the battery module remains functional.
Implementation Method 1
a number of buffer parts on one surface of the lower panel... Each of the buffer parts may include a top surface and a bottom surface, each being parallel to the lower panel, and left and right side surfaces connecting the top surface to the bottom surface. Each of the left and right side surfaces may have an inward concave shape.
Data Source
AI summary
A battery pack includes a battery module configured to accommodate a number of battery cells, and a lower protective cover including a lower panel detachably coupled to a lower portion of the battery module and a number of buffer parts on one surface of the lower panel. A structure of the lower protective cover of the battery pack may be improved to absorb an impact from a lower side of a vehicle. A cross-sectional shape of the buffer part of the lower protective cover may be changed to adjust and design an impact absorption value.