Business
Constellium today announced the results of its collaborative research project ALuminium Intensive Vehicle Enclosures (ALIVE). Constellium’s University Technology Center (UTC) at Brunel University London was the lead partner of the project focused on developing structural aluminium battery enclosures for electric vehicles. The £15m project, half funded by UK government subsidies through its Advanced Propulsion Center (APC), began in 2020.
The consortium, comprised of six industrial partners (BMW, Constellium, EXPERT Technologies Group, Innoval Technology, Powdertech and Volvo) and two university technology partners (BCAST (Brunel University London) and WMG (University of Warwick)), developed novel aluminium battery enclosure designs meeting challenging performance, manufacturing, weight, and cost targets for the project’s OEM partners, BMW and Volvo. The project’s multidisciplinary team investigated and implemented a wide range of joining and forming technologies in combination with Constellium’s family of high-strength and high-crash alloys, Constellium HSA6® and Constellium HCA6®, to create high-performance, lightweight, and cost-efficient aluminium designs.
The project also enabled the creation of a full-scale battery enclosure prototyping line. Several different 1:1 scale prototypes have been built for a variety of vehicle platforms, passing a range of severe testing requirements such as side pole crash/side impact, bottom intrusion, acceleration, shock, vibration, and leak testing. The team also demonstrated the superior performance of coated aluminium solutions for fire resistance. The battery enclosure designs and associated manufacturing technologies developed as part of the ALIVE project enabled the team to save between 12% to 35% of the weight, depending on the design, compared to existing OEM aluminium and steel designs while meeting or exceeding performance targets.
ALIVE also supported the development of cost models to quantify manufacturing costs and minimize capital expenditures to support future industrialization decision-making processes. Given the rapidly evolving EV market, the team had to adapt quickly and develop various technologies supporting OEMs’ structural, non-structural, module-to-pack, and cell-to-pack battery enclosure strategies. Additionally, the consortium proposed a full cradle-to-grave Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), validated by an external panel, demonstrating the benefit of aluminium solutions over ancillary steel designs.
“Today, we celebrate the impressive achievements of the ALIVE project and the power of collaboration between OEMs and suppliers to innovate the future of the automotive industry,” commented Alexandra Bendler, President of Constellium’s Automotive Structures & Industry business unit. “Together, we are paving the way toward sustainable electrification, offering unparalleled battery enclosure designs that exceed performance and cost requirements while providing significant weight savings. Thank you to all the teams and partners involved for their exceptional contributions.”
The Constellium team is already adapting the design philosophies to other enclosure types, such as chest battery packs for trucks and SUVs, as well as validating the use of high-recycled content alloys in such demanding aluminium product forms to further improve their carbon footprint.
Constellium designed and produced the aluminium extrusions for the project at its University Technology Center (UTC) at Brunel University London, its dedicated center of excellence for developing and testing aluminium extrusions and prototype automotive components at scale.