Battery Unit Top Cover Cooling for Uneven Cell Heights
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing battery modules face issues with uneven cooling due to varying cell heights, leading to reduced performance and lifetime, and are cumbersome to repair or replace due to integrated housing designs.
Innovation Solution
A battery unit with a top cover member featuring roll-bonded metal sheets that form cooling channels through inflation, compensating for height variations and ensuring uniform mechanical pressure and thermal conductivity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Strength
If a battery module uses a fixed housing design with integrated cooling channels, then structural integrity is improved, but uniform cooling performance deteriorates due to varying cell heights
Solution Approach 1:
The top cover member is designed with elastic deformability, allowing it to adapt dynamically to varying cell heights. When compressed during assembly, the top cover member deforms to make uniform contact with all battery cells regardless of height variations, ensuring consistent cooling performance while maintaining structural integrity through the elastic recovery property of the material.
Solution Approach 2:
The top cover member's physical state is changed from rigid to elastic through material selection and design. This parameter change allows the cover to compress and conform to the actual cell height variations, creating uniform cooling channels and ensuring consistent thermal contact across all cells while preserving overall structural strength.
2Stability of the object's composition
If battery cells are tightly fixed in a housing to prevent movement, then mechanical stability is improved, but thermal contact for cooling deteriorates due to height variations
Solution Approach 1:
The top cover member provides mechanical stability through elastic compression rather than rigid fixation. The elastic material allows the cover to maintain stable contact pressure on all cells while accommodating height variations, ensuring both mechanical stability and optimal thermal contact for efficient cooling.
Solution Approach 2:
The top cover member is designed as a flexible elastic component that can deform to conform to varying cell heights. This flexibility enables uniform thermal contact across all cells while maintaining mechanical stability through the elastic restoring force, solving the contradiction between rigid fixation and thermal contact.
3Ease of repair
If a battery module uses a modular design for easy replacement, then ease of repair is improved, but structural complexity increases due to additional connection components
Solution Approach 1:
The battery module is segmented into replaceable battery cell units within a common housing structure. The top cover member serves as a shared component that maintains structural integrity and cooling functionality for multiple cells. This segmentation allows individual cells or groups of cells to be replaced independently while reusing the housing and top cover, simplifying repair processes without requiring complete module replacement.
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
The solution provides improved heat transfer performance and structural integrity, allowing for efficient cooling and reduced assembly requirements, while adapting to varying cell heights and busbar configurations.
Implementation Method 1
a first metal sheet on an inner side of the top cover member; a second metal sheet on an outer side of the top cover member, the first and second metal sheets being roll-bonded to each other
Implementation Method 2
inflating, after fixing the top cover member to the frame, the top cover member to elastically press the first metal sheet against the plurality of battery cells for forming the at least one cooling channel
Implementation Method 3
at least one cooling channel between bonding areas of the first metal sheet and the second metal sheet
Implementation Method 4
at least one cooling channel between bonding areas of the first metal sheet and the second metal sheet
Data Source
AI summary
A battery unit includes a plurality of battery cells; a frame including a bottom member and a plurality of side walls, the bottom member and the plurality of side walls forming an interior accommodation space configured to accommodate the plurality of battery cells; and a top cover member fixed to the frame and including: a first metal sheet on an inner side of the top cover member; a second metal sheet on an outer side of the top cover member, the first and second metal sheets being roll-bonded to each other; and at least one cooling channel between bonding areas of the first metal sheet and the second metal sheet.