Nature-inspired cellular structure design for electric vehicle battery compartment: Application to crashworthiness

Abstract

This paper discusses the potential of using lightweight nature-inspired cellular structured designs as energy absorbers in crashworthiness applications for electric vehicles (EV). As EVs are becoming popular with their increased battery capacity, these lightweight cellular structures have regained research interest as they may increase mileage by reducing vehicle mass in addition to protecting the battery during collisions. In this paper, a novel lightweight cellular structure for EV battery protection and crashworthiness is designed and simulated. In designing the cellular structure, four different ways of applying the shell thickness have been considered that affects the collapse behavior and the crashworthiness. A numerical study was conducted on 45 samples with varying length, shell thicknesses, and thickness application methods. Four types of shell thickness application methods were investigated: Uniform thickness, strut-wall thickness, gradient thickness, and alternate thickness. Force-displacement curves, energy absorption, specific energy absorption, and collapse behaviors are some of the metrics used for evaluating the crashworthiness of the structures. Shell thickness is found to affect both the collapse behavior and energy absorption capabilities. Energy absorption results are similar to other studies on designed cellular structures. The highest performing cellular structure is reported to have a specific energy absorption of 35kJ/kg, which is comparable to cellular structures reported in the literature. 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.