Battery Support Frame Corner Element Tolerance Compensation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing battery support frames for electric vehicles face challenges in achieving tightness and load-bearing capacity, particularly during crashes, due to dimensional deviations and torsions in metal profiles, which complicate automated welding and adhesive bonding processes.
Innovation Solution
A battery support frame design incorporating a corner element that compensates for tolerances and torsions between longitudinal and transverse profiles, allowing for reworked connections and the use of form-fitting pins and ribs to enhance stability and sealing, with welds relocated away from the corner area for improved reliability.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Strength
If metal profiles with length more than one meter are used for the support structure, then the structural tasks and load-bearing capacity are improved, but dimensional deviations and torsions occur leading to gaps and misalignment at connection points
Solution Approach 1:
The support structure is divided into modular components: longitudinal profiles, transverse profiles, and corner elements. Each component can be manufactured separately with controlled dimensions, and the corner elements act as intermediate segments that compensate for cumulative tolerance deviations in the profiles.
Solution Approach 2:
Corner elements serve as intermediary components between longitudinal and transverse profiles. These corner elements absorb and compensate for dimensional deviations and torsions, acting as mediators that ensure proper alignment and connection without requiring perfect precision from the main profiles.
2Productivity
If automated welding processes are used for connection, then productivity is improved, but the process control and automation become difficult due to gaps and offsets at connection points
Solution Approach 1:
The corner elements are pre-manufactured with precise geometry and connection surfaces. This preliminary action ensures that when profiles are assembled with the corner elements, the connection points are already optimized for automated welding, eliminating the need for complex real-time adjustments during the welding process.
3Reliability
If tight and stable connections are made to ensure sealing, then reliability is improved, but the connection complexity and manufacturing difficulty increase due to tolerance compensation requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The design allows for parameter changes in the corner elements, such as adjustable connection surfaces and tolerance compensation features. This enables the corner elements to adapt to variations in profile dimensions while maintaining reliable sealing connections, without requiring overly complex connection mechanisms.
Data Source
Figure 1a~2b
Figure 3a~4
Figure 5a~7
AI summary
In a battery support frame for an electric vehicle battery, which is optimized with regard to tightness, compensation of component tolerances and load bearing, especially in the event of a crash, it is provided that a corner element is arranged between a longitudinal profile and a transverse profile as tolerance compensation, via which the longitudinal profile and transverse profile are connected to each other.