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2019
Presentation
Titel
Closed Cell Aluminum Foam Products Infiltrated with Phase Change Material (PCM) Used for Battery Housing Applications of Electric Cars
Titel Supplements
Presentation held at 10th International Conference on Materials for Advanced Technologies, ICMAT 2019, Singapore, 28th June 2019
Abstract
Battery systems of electric vehicles have to face high mechanical and thermal specification. In future cars they usually will be placed in the underbody structure. Consequently the battery housing protecting the battery cells has to resist significantly larger loads from below. In the bollard test underbody systems are tested regarding their protection ability. Additionally battery housings mostly have an integrated active cooling system. The cooling energy is drawn from the battery itself reducing the driving range of the electric car. This publication focuses on a material composite consisting out of closed cell aluminum foam products infiltrated with phase change material (PCM) used for battery housing applications of electric cars. PCM can be used for passive cooling reducing the energy consumption or rather increasing the driving range. PCM has the ability to store a high amount of thermal energy, but goes ahead with low thermal conductivity. Literature shows that for passive cooling applications the thermal conductivity is increased by metal fibers, graphite or open cell metal foams. In comparison to previous literature in this publication the manufacturing technology for producing closed cell aluminum foam products infiltrated with PCM is investigated. The goal is the production of materials with increased thermal conductivity of PCM, more precisely paraffin, on the one hand. A further improvement relating to the state of the art is to add an increased mechanical performance to the passive thermal energy storage system. Experimental results of closed cell aluminum foam products infiltrated with PCM are presented and its potential for battery housings applications is evaluated.