Aluminum Foam Sandwich Battery Housing for Electric Cars

Electric cars demand advanced specifications regarding passenger safety. Most of the current car constructions refer to conventional combustion vehicles. The safety-relevant battery system usually is placed at the bottom of electric cars equipped with an active cooling system. Especially crash loads acting from below are not standardized. Intrusions into the battery systems can lead to catastrophic effects. For battery system safety and with this passenger safety new concepts are necessary. This presentation shows a solution for battery housing out of aluminum foam sandwiches and its performance in a bollard test. The bottom plate protects the battery system by energy absorption through the compaction of the aluminum foam core with adjusted density. Both sandwich cover sheets are directly joined during the foaming process by metallic bond reducing the number process steps. To meet the strict temperature requirements of battery cells a phase-change-material (PCM) can be integrated in the closed cell aluminum foam with the goal of passive thermal management. This solution will be illustrated and explained additionally.