AZL begins multi-material battery casing project for electromobility

In October 2020, AZL Aachen (Aachen, Germany), together with an international industrial consortium consisting of automotive OEM Audi (Ingolstadt, Germany) and suppliers including Asahi Kasai Corp. (Tokyo, Japan), Covestro (Leverkusen, Germany), EconCore (Leuven, Belgium), IPTE (Genk, Belgium), Johns Manville (JM; Denver, Colo., U.S.) and more, will launch a joint project to develop a multi-material battery casing. According to AZL, the project is being pursued in response to the increasing demand for electric vehicles and the need for lightweight, but robust battery casings. Interested companies can initiate participation in the project until October 22, 2020.

The eight-month product development is planned to start with an international market analysis and a concept study where different multi-material component concepts — including production scenarios — will be developed and evaluated with regard to their costs. Finally, says AZL, a final multi-material battery casing will be designed in detail and manufactured as a prototype in a follow-up project.

 "Battery casings are a key component in electric vehicles. The requirements are challenging and very individual for different vehicle classes," says Dr.-Ing. Florian Meyer, project management mentor from the Technical Development department of Audi AG. "We are looking forward to the creative exchange with the cross-value chain and cross-material class consortium to find out how we can save weight and costs by using plastic-based multi-material solutions versus status quo solutions made of metals."

AZL notes that it will initially draw up a market overview with the industrial consortium that includes existing series components and concepts and identifies the relevant manufacturers, users, suppliers and supply chains on the market. Standards and requirements for battery casings will be derived from the existing components and the advantages of multi-material approaches will be evaluated. On the basis of a detailed data sheet, various product concepts will be worked out and associated production scenarios for multi-material battery casings will be established. The participants can select component concepts for which CAD models, FEM analyses and process chains are developed and finally evaluated with regard to their production costs. A final multi-material battery casing will be worked out in detail and will be manufactured as a real battery casing prototype after this eight-month development project.

AZL says the kick-off of the project will take place on October 22, 2020 within the framework of a video conference.

Further background information on the development of the battery casing market and details of the project can be found under AZL’s project description and the overview of this project.

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This post is courtesy of the CompositesWorld and AZL Aachen GmbH media partnership.