Development and Manufacturing of Multifunctional Structures for Automotive Vehicles

Abstract

The introduction of electric vehicles (EVs) has posed many technical challenges to the automotive industry. State-of-the-art lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries add significant weight to vehicles both in the form of battery weight and supporting systems, immensely hindering vehicle performance and efficiency. A primary source of the penalty is that battery packs and supporting systems each serve only one purpose, e.g. energy storage or cooling, as current EV battery cells do not carry structural loads or absorb collision impact energy. The Department of Energy Vehicles Technologies Office (DOE VTO) has interest to research, develop, and validate a new class of multi-functional (composite) materials and structures. To meet the DOE requirements, the team lead by Acellent Technologies Inc. along with Senvias has proposed the development of an innovative energy storage solution. The solution utilizes Multifunctional Energy Storage Composite (MESC) structures originally developed at Stanford University and exclusively licensed by Acellent that: A. Supplies electrical power, while serving as a structural element, capable of carrying mechanical loads with reduced weight and complexity B. Uses embedded sensor networks to monitor the state and health of both the composite structure as well as the battery (Battery Health Monitoring, BHM) on a real time on demand basis MESC’s are an optimized design of a robust multifunctional hybrid-composite-batterychassis system that can carry structural loads, safely store electrical energy, absorb impact energy, and lead to significant weight savings. The goal of the DOE project is to develop the end-to-end manufacturing process for MESC structures to be used in ground vehicles. A composite enclosure together with the MESC will be designed and prototyped by the end of the project. This paper will provide the details of the development for the project towards the design of the MESC and BHM for use with an automobile enclosure.