Modeling flexible configuration of cell finishing for future battery production research

Today, the increasing demand for battery cells requires efficient large-scale production. At the same time, cell design continues to improve regarding various performance metrics causing product feature changes, which in turn affect the process chain, equipment and process parameter design in production. In cell finishing – the final cell production section – both external cell features, related to the system components, and internal cell features, related to process protocol, are directly affected. However, the interrelations between the core domains – product, process, parameters and equipment – are hardly assessed in the current cell finishing planning and thus no systematic approach to configuration design has been established. This paper focuses on this research need and presents an approach through configuration modeling based on Modularization and Knowledge-Based Design and uses real data from factory planning. From the analyzed raw data, a structured database of product, process, parameters, equipment and their interrelations are derived. For this modeling approach, the paper first explains the conceptual framework. Then, it introduces domains and sub-domains of the database and their formalization for modeling. Subsequently, the architecture of a Two-Stage Configuration Model is explained for flexible configurations (first stage) and virtual modeling (second stage). Finally, the modeling approach is implemented for a real case of prismatic cell finishing. It demonstrates how various configurations can be systematically generated and visualized based on design requirements to advance design optimizations in cell finishing for research purposes and industrial application.