Ensuring Structural Compliance of Electric Vehicle Battery Pack Against Crush Load & Fatigue Damage

Lithium-ion batteries are currently used for the new generation of electric vehicles (EVs) due to their fast-charging rate enabled by high energy density and cell voltage. Battery safety is the primary concern for these new generation electric vehicles. The high amount of energy stored in EV battery packs translates to a higher probability of fire in case of severe deformation of the battery compartment due to automotive crash or impact. Usually, an EV battery catches fire due to its thermal runaway, where exothermic reaction takes place between flammable electrolyte and highly active material of the battery. The thermal runaway produces increasingly high temperatures, often leading to a destructive result that may be fatal to the EV occupant. This present work describes a methodology to virtually simulate the crushing of an automotive battery pack as per ISO 12405-3:2014 standard and evaluates the crashworthiness performance of the battery pack. A complete battery pack consisting of multiple modules, enclosure, and connections are considered for the finite element analysis (FEA). Nonlinear explicit dynamic analysis is performed to simulate the crushing of the battery pack. This study further extends to evaluate fatigue analysis and performance of the battery pack. We propose design changes from the simulation analysis to improve/optimize fatigue performance.