Battery Rail Tie Brackets Limit Deflection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Electrified vehicle battery systems face challenges in maintaining the structural integrity and retention of battery cells during impacts, as existing solutions fail to effectively limit deflection, rotation, and deformation of rail assemblies, leading to potential cell displacement.
Innovation Solution
A rail assembly with tie brackets mounted to the rails, which resist deflection, rotation, and deformation by acting as travel limiters, ensuring battery cell retention through a combination of welded attachments and strategically placed tie brackets that connect between the upper and lower flanges of the rail assembly.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If existing rail assembly solutions are used, then the battery cells can be supported, but the rail assembly fails to effectively limit deflection, rotation, and deformation during impacts
Solution Approach 1:
The rail assembly is segmented into multiple functional components: upper rail, lower rail, columns, and tie brackets. Each component has a specific function in supporting and constraining the battery cells, allowing the system to effectively limit deflection, rotation, and deformation while maintaining structural integrity.
Solution Approach 2:
The tie brackets connect the upper and lower rails in the vertical dimension, creating a three-dimensional rigid structure. This dimensional connection prevents deflection and rotation by distributing forces across multiple spatial dimensions, thereby enhancing the overall stability of the rail assembly during impacts.
2Reliability
If tie brackets are added to limit travel of the rail, then the structural integrity is improved, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The tie brackets are integrated with the existing rail structure, merging the function of limiting rail travel with the structural support function of the rails themselves. This combination reduces the need for separate, redundant components while maintaining enhanced structural integrity.
Solution Approach 2:
The tie brackets serve multiple functions simultaneously: they limit travel of the rail, resist deflection between transverse portions, prevent rotation, and distribute impact forces. This multi-functionality reduces the need for additional specialized components, thereby managing device complexity while improving reliability.
Data Source
AI summary
A battery array according to an exemplary aspect of the present disclosure includes, among other things, a rail that supports a battery cell and a tie bracket connected to the rail and configured to limit travel of the rail.