Solutions for safe and secure batteries

Battery safety is becoming a more critical factor in car design as vehicles are equipped with increasingly powerful electrical systems. This is particularly true for hybrid and electric vehicles Röchling has developed a multifunctional battery housing that protects the heart of electric vehicles in the event of a crash. Using its Stratura® Hybrid, the company’s latest innovation in low weight reinforced thermoplastics (LWRT), the housings provide superior acoustic characteristics and improved crash performance by absorbing the energy released in a collision without breaking or splintering. In addition, added aluminum layers within the Stratura Hybrid material result in greater electromagnetic protection, so the vehicle’s sophisticated electric systems are effectively shielded from potentially harmful magnetic fields. Röchling Automotive is also working on the integration of the charging coil into the car’s underbody, which facilitates convenient electric driving by removing the need to “plug in” cars, and to charge them conductively instead. The driver only needs to position the vehicle-integrated secondary charging coil above the primary coil built into the ground. When they are aligned, the induction charging is done via electromagnetic fields. Röchling Automotive uses an integrated metallic EMC cover to prevent the fields from causing damage to the vehicle electronics. The underbody geometry also allows the transmission of higher power at a given standardized size.