Multi-Disciplinary Electric Cargo Scooter Battery Design & Simulation

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">Evaluating the structural strength and thermal performance of electric vehicle battery packs is crucial for enhancing safety and performance. In two-wheelers, the battery pack must withstand significant vibrational forces, shocks from impacts, and accidental drops, all of which can compromise the battery's structural integrity. A failure in this regard could lead to dangerous outcomes such as short circuits, fire, or even explosions, making the robustness of the battery pack crucial for both safety and performance. Conducting physical vibration, shock, and drop tests on a battery pack is one way of proving the robustness of the design, however it is time and resource consuming leading to an iterative approach of design improvement which also demands stringent safety measures and specialized equipment’s. The present work focuses on computer-aided virtual simulations at the design stage to evaluate the structural integrity of the battery pack assembly, optimize battery design, and reduce prototyping and physical tests and expedite the product development and validation process. The battery structure was excited to random loads and the acceleration/stress response was assessed to ensure that there are no high stress concentration regions. A drop test simulation was performed by dropping the battery pack from a height of 1 m, and shock simulations were conducted using half-sine excitation. The numerical model was developed using the commercially available finite element (FE) code Abaqus and analyzed against various load cases, including vibration, mechanical shock, and drop tests, in accordance with AIS 156 standards. As this battery will be operational in high ambient temperature zones, immersion cooling technique is used to prevent the overheating of the cells. The battery has been therefore simulated with di-electric fluid cooling. Simultaneously, thermal simulations were performed for both the air-cooled and dielectric liquid-cooled versions and the best coolant was selected for further studies. After ensuring the cell holder's structural performance through simulations, additional analyses were conducted to ensure ease of manufacturability for the injection-molded plastic design. Various probable injection gate locations and plastic materials were evaluated, and the optimal combination was identified through virtual simulations, significantly reducing mold rework costs and time.</div></div>