Battery Cell Frame: With computing power for cool batteries
Our frames for battery cells ensure performance and help with thermal management. During development, we rely on highly specialized computer simulations.
With our battery cell frames, we provide a home for one of the most important components of electromobility. This is not just about a mere holder for the vehicle battery.
The components can even prevent fires. They achieve this through optimized thermal management. Because if batteries have the air they need to breathe, dangerously high temperatures cannot arise in the first place.
Well-designed safety
During development, we combined our skills and knowledge with the computing power of our computers. We use highly specialized simulations and models to reproduce heat flows around the battery.
The days of material- and cost-intensive test series are thus a thing of the past: simulations enable even faster development. In addition, we use the calculations as a basis for selecting optimized material combinations. Accurate predictions about the behavior of the components complement the development process and thus provide a further safety net.
Cooperation with the University of Bolzano
The research is so exciting, in fact, that the Free University of Bolzano has joined us. Together with the scientists, we are investigating how we need to design the thermal management of the batteries - to ensure even greater safety. And that both during normal operation and when the cells are overloaded.
No idea too fixed
Despite very good mathematical models, however, computers are far from being able to develop our components automatically. However, the help of computers enables us to develop new products rapidly. This allows us, for example, to test variants that initially seem unconventional and would be too expensive for real prototypes.
All advantages combined
One result of this man-machine cooperation is a fully integrated battery frame. It combines three functions in a single component:
- protecting the battery cells from vibrations and shocks
- providing electrical connections for charging and discharging the battery
- ensuring the necessary heat flow to and from the battery cells.
Never on board is heavy weight. We use thermoplastic materials for the battery cell frames. In this way, we avoid every superfluous gram - at significantly lower manufacturing costs.
So the next generation of e-vehicles can expect safer, lighter and better performance. Not least thanks to battery cell frames.
Cool Car
Röchling Automotive wants to present itself on the market with innovative solutions for battery modules that can be used in fully electric or hybrid vehicles. This is why the Cool-Car project was created, which is concerned with the construction of a battery module prototype that is optimized in terms of weight and heat management. These are fundamental aspects for increasing the performance and autonomy of electric vehicles and thus for the promotion of sustainable mobility. The idea of the project arose from the close collaboration with the Free University of Bolzano. The project builds on the skills of the university's professors and researchers and uses the knowledge and contacts of the automotive company Röchling Automotive. The project is supported by the European Regional Development Fund (efre).
