AZL and the International Industry Alliance will launch a joint project to develop a multi-material battery case. The international industrial alliance is composed of automotive original equipment manufacturer Audi (Audi) and upstream and downstream suppliers in the industry chain, including AsahiKasai, Covestro, EconCore, IPTE and Johns Manville.
The project will begin with an analysis of the current status and conceptual research of battery casings in the international market, and will carry out product development for 8 months. This project will develop and evaluate different multi-material components (including production plans) and estimate their costs. In the end, the detailedly designed multi-material battery case will be manufactured as a prototype in subsequent projects.
People's demand for electric vehicles is growing, and with it comes the demand for rugged, lightweight battery casings. There are already a large number of battery cases made of different material components on the market. However, these battery casings are usually made of aluminum and steel, and cannot provide the best solution for every need. In contrast, the AZL Partnership project uses a multi-material approach, that is, using the right materials in the right place for each specific need.
Dr. Florian Meyer, a project management consultant for Audi's Technology Development Department, said: "The battery case is a key component of electric vehicles. It is challenging to meet the requirements of the project and is specific to different vehicle categories. Individualized. We look forward to creative exchanges with cross-value chains and cross-material categories of groups to reduce weight and save costs by using multiple plastic-based materials instead of using existing metal material solutions."
AZL will first draft a market overview with the industry alliance, including the existing series of components and conceptual designs, and identify relevant manufacturers, users, suppliers and supply chains in the market. The standards and requirements of the battery case will be summarized from the existing components, and the advantages of the multi-material approach will be evaluated. On the basis of listing detailed data sheets, various product conceptual designs have been developed, and related production plans have been established for multi-material battery casings. Participants can choose the conceptual design of components, develop CAD models for them, perform FEM analysis, and evaluate their production costs.