Lightweight Multi-Material-Design of a Liquid Cooled 18650 Cell Holder

Due to ever stricter climate targets, the focus across all industries increasingly shifts to the reduction of CO2 emissions, which, for mobile systems, can be achieved by saving mass through lightweight design. One promising approach to increase the lightweight design potential lies in multi-material design (MMD). This approach uses the material that is best suited to fulfill the function at the respective locations in the system. However, this approach poses the challenge of initially gaining the necessary knowledge of the system in order to select the best material for the job. This work is dedicated to this challenge as well as the implementation of an MMD for a liquid cooled battery module. For this purpose, the approaches of systemic lightweight design were used, for instance, to identify components with excessive weight and to analyze their lightweight design potential. By coupling CFD, thermal and structural simulations as well as accompanying experiments, it was possible to verify and validate very early during development as well as to incorporate the interactions between product and production directly in the design phase. This made it possible to develop an MMD module design that saves over 60 % of mass compared to the reference system made out of a single material. ... mehrIn addition, it showed that systemic lightweight design and MMD not only reduce mass while guaranteeing the same functionality, but can also decrease costs through smart choices of materials.