Roll-Bonded Battery Module Housing With Cooling and Crash Channels
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing battery modules face challenges with increased manufacturing costs, complex assembly processes, and inefficient cooling due to inflexible cooling channel designs, leading to overheating, reduced performance, and potential thermal runaway, especially in modular designs without top cooling covers.
Innovation Solution
A battery module design featuring a frame with roll-bonded metal sheets that are bent and inflated to form integrated cooling channels, including top flap portions that press against battery cells to ensure uniform cooling and venting, while reducing assembly complexity and costs.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of repair
If modular battery design is used, then replacement of defect parts becomes easier, but mechanical integration and fixing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The battery system is divided into modular submodules that can be independently replaced. Each submodule contains battery cells with integrated frame structures, allowing defective units to be swapped without disassembling the entire battery system, thus improving ease of repair while maintaining manageable complexity through standardized interfaces.
Solution Approach 2:
The frame structure is merged with the cooling system and submodule housing into an integrated component. This combination eliminates separate fixing mechanisms and cooling plates, reducing mechanical integration complexity while maintaining modular replaceability of the entire submodule assembly.
2Temperature
If separate cooling plates are added to battery modules, then cooling performance improves, but manufacturing costs and assembly complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The cooling channels are integrated directly into the frame structure by forming cavities within the frame material itself, eliminating the need for separate cooling plates. This merging of cooling functionality into the structural component maintains effective cooling performance while significantly reducing assembly complexity and manufacturing costs.
Solution Approach 2:
The frame structure serves multiple functions simultaneously: it provides mechanical support, houses the cooling channels, and acts as the submodule housing. This multi-functionality eliminates the need for separate dedicated cooling components, reducing overall assembly complexity while maintaining cooling performance.
3Strength
If extruded profiles are used for frame and cooling channels, then structural integrity is maintained, but cooling channel design flexibility is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The frame structure is designed with locally optimized cooling channel configurations that can be tailored to specific thermal management requirements. By forming cooling channels directly within the frame material, the design allows for variable channel shapes, sizes, and distributions in different regions, providing design flexibility while maintaining overall structural integrity through the frame's inherent strength.
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 design achieves efficient thermal propagation, reduces manufacturing effort, and compensates for height variations among battery cells, enhancing cooling performance and safety by integrating cooling channels directly into the frame, thus improving thermal conductivity and preventing thermal runaway.
Implementation Method 1
a first metal sheet (31) on an inner side of the plate and a second metal sheet (32) on an outer side of the plate which are roll bonded to each other
Implementation Method 2
at least one cooling channel (40, 43, 44) formed in at least one of the at least two side walls (22, 23), the at least two top flap portions (26, 27) and the bottom member (21) between bonding areas (33)
Implementation Method 3
The at least two top flap portions (26, 27) are configured to elastically press the first metal sheet (31) against the plurality of battery cells (10)
Data Source
Figure 1
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AI summary
A battery pack (100) comprises a plurality of battery cells, and a housing comprising a bottom member, a plurality of side walls (22, 23, 24,25) and a top member, wherein the bottom member, the plurality of side walls and the top member form an interior accommodation space accommodating the plurality of battery cells, wherein at least one among the plurality side walls, the top member and the bottom member are formed by a plurality of metal sheets (41, 41', 41"; 42; 44, 44', 44") which are roll bonded to each other, wherein at least one cooling channel (40) is formed between bonding areas of the plurality of metal sheets, and wherein at least one crash channel (45) is formed between bonding areas of the plurality of the metal sheets.