Thu, 09 February, 2023
TWI has joined a consortium of organisations to further develop electron beam welding for the fabrication of battery packs for use in the automotive sector.
The Innovate UK-funded ‘Eb-Bat’ project sees us unite with project leaders Cambridge Vacuum Engineering (CVE), and automotive manufacturers Delta Cosworth.
The use of electron beam welding for this work promises to deliver energy savings, a smaller factory footprint, less scrap and welding fume control. Electron beam offers a number of benefits over other joining processes, being much faster than laser welding and without suffering from reflectivity from copper and aluminium, providing more reliable and consistent welds.
Figure 1. Electron beam column with rapid wide range deflection
Uniting experts in manufacturing, joining and electron beam equipment, the EB-Bat project will deliver a pioneering demonstration of the process performance, productivity, quality and economic viability of the process to the automotive industry with the aim to secure funding to bring the developments into production.
The Faraday challenge is a partnership between Innovate UK, the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre, and The Faraday Institution to support research and development of innovative, and sustainable battery technologies for the propulsion of electric vehicles in the automotive sector.
This has led to the provision of £541 million in funding from 2017 to 2025 invested into research and innovation projects and facilities to drive the growth of the automotive battery business in the UK.
Figure 2. Busbar battery welding