Team RP6

The research area of RP 6 comprises the development of battery modules and battery packs, with a special focus on scalable and safe system concepts for electric vehicles. The modelling, simulation and experimental validation on advanced system level are the key tasks for reaching this objective. RP 6 can be divided into three main topics: Electrical, Thermal and Mechanical Design.

Electrical Design:
An important aspect of an energy storage system development is electrical design. This contains the electrical connectors and balancing concepts as well as the development of a battery monitoring system (battery management system) including the measurement and state estimation of each single cell. An overall electrical safety concept is in a battery pack is absolutely required. All this points are in the research scope of RP 6.

Thermal Design:
Reliability and performance of a battery pack depend mainly on the temperature of the cells and its assembly. Especially in a tropical environment thermal management is essential. Therefore an integrated thermal management and a power-efficient cooling system will be developed. New thermal materials and cooling possibilities will be investigated in detail and the effects on the system level will be reviewed.

Mechanical Design:
The construction of a battery pack is a highly iterative process. The thermal and the electrical concepts have to be considered within the scope of space- and weight-saving and of course with respect to stability and safety of the battery. Other important requirements are the maintainability and serviceability of the pack. Single modules need to be designed such that they can be easily replaced in case of operating problems. The pack will be built up in a multi-re­dundant way to assure a stable operation even if single micro packs produce failures. In order to ensure a safe transport and operation of the battery pack dynamic and static simulations will be per­formed. The final step during development is the integration of the battery pack in the electric vehicle, which is done in close cooperation with RP 9.