Advanced Composite Technologies for Next Generation BEV—EMC, Crash, Thermal Management

The While metallic structures in BEV are state of the art for the white body and the battery system, composite and plastic structures are an emerging technology. To fully exploit their potential, they need to be seen as a design-element, rather than just the replacement of a given metallic design. As composite prototypes can be more cost intense due to required mold and fixture investments, the importance of virtual design and development is even more pronounced. Hence, early sampling is avoided entirely, while serious concept decisions have to be taken. As composite battery enclosures are introduced for the first time into the market, they also include new solutions e.g. for EMC protection, crash safety, and cooling. Consequently, Experiment & CAE need to streamline every piece of data and go hand in hand. Data require to be stored with reference to each other and handled as a whole. Data mining and access to relevant meta information are key, especially when ML & genAI is utilized. Kautex designed and developed several Demo Vehicles to prove the in-situ performance of their products. Results and comparisons of composite vs. metal (both simulation & experiment) regarding EMC, Crash and Thermal Management are presented. Furthermore, the viability of the generated Data for Machine Learning techniques and genAI is demonstrated.