Patent Application
20240413476
The information provided in this section is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Ventilating the battery cells of a battery pack for an electric vehicle is known in the art. The vent system must remain open for gas to traverse during a thermal event so that the gas is able to reach the pack's vent port. The rest of the pack is commonly filled with potting resin (foamed or non-foamed) for electrical isolation, structural performance and thermal insulation. Controlling the position of the potting is challenging. The variability of foam expansion makes the baseline system incompatible with foam potting.
The present disclosure relates to an assembled manifold for thermal runaway vent gas transport in battery systems.
The main objective of the present disclosure is to create a closed volume for the thermal runaway gas vent system. This closed volume cannot be blocked by potting during manufacturing.
According to an aspect of the present disclosure, a battery pack for a vehicle includes a housing including at least one pack vent between an interior and an exterior of the housing. A plurality of battery cells are disposed within the housing. A vent system includes a closed channel network under the cells in connection with a vent of the plurality of battery cells and the at least one pack vent. A manifold is mounted on the closed channel network, a portion of the manifold mounted on the housing includes a connector installed from external to the housing that connects the manifold to the closed channel network.
According to another aspect, the pack mounted portion of the manifold includes a sealing material engaging the connector.
According to another aspect, the sealing material includes a rubber foam.
According to another aspect, the manifold connects channels coming from at least two modules to a single pack vent.
According to another aspect, a potting material fills all cavities external to the vent system.
According to another aspect, the potting material includes one of a blown foam, a syntactic foam, and a non-foamed polymeric resin.
According to another aspect, the vent system is sealed to prevent potting from entering the vent system during manufacture of the pack.
According to another aspect, the closed channel network includes a cell channel array.
According to another aspect, the cell channel array includes at least two pieces per battery module.
According to another aspect, a gap between the at least two pieces is less than 3 mm.
According to another aspect, the closed channel network includes cell tray and vent tray stacks sealed with other cell tray and vent tray stacks to create a sealed vent channel battery module.
According to another aspect, the seal could be achieved using at least one of mechanical joining, fusion bonding, welding, solvent bonding and adhesive bonding.
According to another aspect, the ends of the cell trays facing another cell tray contain molded features to enable one of snap and press fitting.
According to another aspect, one of the vent tray and the cell tray include a plurality of ribs defining channels therebetween.
According to another aspect, a thermal runaway sensor in communication with the channel network.
According to another aspect, the thermal runaway sensor is mounted in the manifold.
According to a further aspect, a battery pack for a vehicle includes a housing including at least one pack vent between an interior and an exterior of the housing. A plurality of battery cells are disposed within the housing. A vent system includes a closed channel network under the cells in connection with a vent of the plurality of battery cells and the at least one pack vent. The closed channel network includes cell tray and vent tray stacks sealed with other cell tray and vent tray stacks to create a sealed vent channel battery module. A manifold is mounted on the closed channel network and includes a connector installed from external to the housing that connects the manifold to a cell vent manifold mounted to a cell tray of the closed channel network.
Further areas of applicability of the present disclosure will become apparent from the detailed description, the claims and the drawings. The detailed description and specific examples are intended for purposes of illustration only and are not intended to limit the scope of the disclosure.
The present disclosure will become more fully understood from the detailed description and the accompanying drawings, wherein:
In the drawings, reference numbers may be reused to identify similar and/or identical elements.
With reference to
As shown in
By way of example, as shown in
With reference to
With reference to
With reference to
With the channels 34 being sealed, the foam or non-foam potting 76 can be filled to a point that it contacts the upper and lower shear plates 14, 16, enabling upper-to-lower shear plate connection through the potting 76. Once the potting is in place the vent system is sealed sufficiently to contain gas.
With reference to
The battery pack 10 includes a closed ventilation system for transporting and reducing the temperature of discharged gas from a cell undergoing thermal runaway. The purpose of creating this closed system is to ensure potting 66 used to encapsulate the battery cells 20 does not enter the vent system during manufacturing of the battery pack 10, as well as keep hot vent gases contained and away from the remaining battery cells 20.
The foregoing description is merely illustrative in nature and is in no way intended to limit the disclosure, its application, or uses. The broad teachings of the disclosure can be implemented in a variety of forms. Therefore, while this disclosure includes particular examples, the true scope of the disclosure should not be so limited since other modifications will become apparent upon a study of the drawings, the specification, and the following claims. It should be understood that one or more steps within a method may be executed in different order (or concurrently) without altering the principles of the present disclosure. Further, although each of the embodiments is described above as having certain features, any one or more of those features described with respect to any embodiment of the disclosure can be implemented in and/or combined with features of any of the other embodiments, even if that combination is not explicitly described. In other words, the described embodiments are not mutually exclusive, and permutations of one or more embodiments with one another remain within the scope of this disclosure.
Spatial and functional relationships between elements (for example, between modules, circuit elements, semiconductor layers, etc.) are described using various terms, including “connected,” “engaged,” “coupled,” “adjacent,” “next to,” “on top of,” “above,” “below,” and “disposed.” Unless explicitly described as being “direct,” when a relationship between first and second elements is described in the above disclosure, that relationship can be a direct relationship where no other intervening elements are present between the first and second elements, but can also be an indirect relationship where one or more intervening elements are present (either spatially or functionally) between the first and second elements. As used herein, the phrase at least one of A, B, and C should be construed to mean a logical (A OR B OR C), using a non-exclusive logical OR, and should not be construed to mean “at least one of A, at least one of B, and at least one of C.”
