Keynote: Optimizing Lifetime and Robustness of Electric Truck Batteries with Simulation Apps

In this keynote talk from the COMSOL Conference 2024 Florence, Martin Refslund Nielsen highlights how resolvent, a COMSOL Certified Consultant, built a custom simulation app to support optimal and robust battery manufacturing in the R&D department at Volvo. The battery app promotes deep technical insight and helps the R&D engineers get faster results, while the broader organization enjoys consistent analysis and reporting as well as knowledge retention and sharing.

Nielsen begins the talk by explaining the LaserBATMAN project, in which a consortium of universities and industry partners in Denmark and Sweden use multiscale simulation of laser welding to join processes for different stages of battery manufacturing. One issue they are focusing on is battery degradation. Nielsen shows how the simulation app that he and his team built can be used by Volvo to test electric truck battery lifetime performance based on input design parameters, manufacturing process parameters and tolerances, and expected or experienced operation history. It also integrates multiphysics simulations of electrochemistry and degradation of the battery cell.

Nielsen then focuses on the app's functionality for optimizing busbar tab welds in the battery pack configuration. He explains how using the battery app for performance prediction is helpful for optimizing product performance, increasing robustness, and reducing the need to design overcapacity. These results enable the manufacturer to charge a higher product price, while having lower manufacturing costs and fewer failures. He concludes his talk by making a wider case for building and using simulation apps in R&D.

Martin Refslund Nielsen joined resolvent in 2023 as their chief commercial officer and robust design expert and partner. He has a mechanical engineering background and has previously worked as a robust design consultant.