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Procedia CIRP 29 (2015) 792 797

The 22nd CIRP conference on Life Cycle Engineering

Impact of multi-material components on the assembly and disassembly of

traction batteries
Alexander Tornowa*, Stefan Andrewb, Franz Dietricha, Klaus Drdera
a

Chair of Production Technology and Process Automation, Institute of Machine Tools and Production Technology (IWF), Technische Universitt
Braunschweig, Langer Kamp 19b, 38106 Braunschweig, Germany
b
Chair of Sustainable Manufacturing & Life Cycle Engineering, Institute of Machine Tools and Production Technology (IWF), Technische Universitt
Braunschweig, Langer Kamp 19b, 38106 Braunschweig, Germany
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +495313912583; E-mail address: a.tornow@tu-braunschweig.de

Abstract
Battery electric vehicles as well as plug in hybrid electric vehicles suffer from high costs as well as low driving ranges. Both characteristics can
be related to the battery system of the vehicle. In order to reduce weight within the battery system and thus enlarge the vehicle range, novel
lightweight components based upon multi-material design are used within batteries. These might offer advantages within the production and
use phase of the product life cycle but in the same way have negative effects on recycling and second life. This paper describes a design
methodology that helps to evaluate the impacts of highly integrated multi-material components on the assembly and disassembly of traction
batteries.

by Elsevier
Elsevier B.V.
B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
2015
2015 The
The Authors.
Authors. Published
Published by
Peer-review
under responsibility of the International Scientific Committee of the Conference 22nd CIRP conference on Life Cycle
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Engineering.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of The 22nd CIRP conference on Life Cycle Engineering
Keywords: Design for Assembly; Design for Disassembly; Multi-Material Design

1. Nomenclature
BEV
CAD
DfA
DfD
ICE
IWF
FCM
SLC

Battery Electric Vehicle

Computer Aided Design
Design for Assembly
Design for Design
Internal Combustion Engine
Institute of Machine Tools and Production
Technology
Function Component Matrix
SuperLightCar

2. Introduction
As described for example by Kaiser et al. [1] the
continuous decrease of CO2 emissions within transportation is
a major political goal. In order to achieve this goal different
alternative drive train concepts for passenger cars are under

investigation. The battery electric vehicle (BEV) is one

concept that offers a possibility of eliminating local emissions.
Furthermore, the integration of different electric motor
concepts and corresponding high voltage energy systems leads
to a new degree of freedom regarding lightweight vehicle
design. This is visible within the wide range between purpose
designed electric vehicles and electric vehicles that have been
converted from conventional internal combustion engine
(ICE) drive trains [2]. Nevertheless, the customer
requirements regarding purchase prices and driving ranges are
still not satisfactory which is due to the material prices and
(gravimetrical) energy densities of state of the art lithium ion
battery cells. Roland Berger Strategy Consulting Global
predicted in [3] that the costs for the production of a battery
system will decrease from currently 750 $ per kWh of energy
to roundabout 280 $ per kWh in the long term due to
economies of scale and production optimization. Regarding
this cost projection a 25 kWh battery system will be currently

2212-8271 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of The 22nd CIRP conference on Life Cycle Engineering
doi:10.1016/j.procir.2015.02.175

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Alexander Tornow et al. / Procedia CIRP 29 (2015) 792 797

priced at 18.750 $. Figure 1 shows the relation between

different process and raw material processing steps for a
1 kWh battery system.
350,00$
300,00$
250,00$
200,00$
150,00$
100,00$
50,00$
0,00$

Fig.1Costprojectionfora1kWhbatterysystemin2010accordingto[3]

Two thirds of these costs are related to the raw materials of

the cells, the material processing and the cell manufacturing.
One third can be traced back to the assembly of the system
and the manufacturing of peripheral components.
Multi-material components are defined as parts that are
composed of more than one material. Within this paper multimaterial components are typically made from metals and
(fibre-reinforced) plastics through in-mould assembly
processes. This mix of materials offers the advantage of
fulfilling more than one product function (e.g. mechanical and
electrical) of a battery and could therefore integrate different
components and reduce the total part count within the system.
This furthermore could lead to a reduction of costs within
battery assembly and production of peripheral components as
depicted within Figure 1. Moreover the integration of
components through multi-material design offers a lightweight
potential due to the reduction of joining processes and could
raise the gravimetric energy of a battery system. Based upon
these advantages the question arises whether and to what
extends the assembly and disassembly is promoted by
extensive use of multi-material designed components.
This paper therefore presents a method that generates
battery modules and systems with multi-material designed
components and evaluates the assembly and disassembly
characteristics of the system relatively to product
characteristics such as energy content and package space
utilization.
3. Principle of the Methodology
To evaluate the impact of multi-material components on
the assembly and disassembly of battery systems a
combination and modification of different methodologies
known in product development have been used and combined
to work partly automated in a software environment.
3.1. Battery Design Analysis
Batteries for full electric vehicles are assembled from
several hundreds of components. These components can be
clustered into three different hierarchical levels: the battery

cell level, the battery module level and the battery system
level. These different levels are necessary to handle the
complexity within battery production. The focus within this
paper is set upon the battery module, which is a combination
of several battery cells with a separate housing, cell control
and cooling system. Modules are usually set up to create small
handling units with low electrical and chemical hazards for
the production of large systems. Nevertheless each level of
the battery system has been examined extensively through
various disassembly studies [4][5] to identify components,
subassemblies and their corresponding functions and create
functional structures. Within these structures the mainfunctions and sub-functions of the components as well as the
complete product level are depicted in an abstracted way
(black-box). The design of components is fully neglected in
this stage of the methodology. Figure 2 shows an example of
the graphical description of the battery module-level with
non-directed relations between different components.

Module = System

Cooling/heating
Insulation

Communication

Battery
management

Sensors

Cells 1..n

Cell-to-cell
interconnection

Mechanical
fixation of the
cells

Mechanical
connection to
system / BIW

Mechanical
connection to
module

High voltage
interconnection

Fig.2Functionalstructureofabatterymodule

The functional structure represents a differential designed

product if each function is related to exactly one component
of the module. This differential design is the base for the
determination of functional integration within the next step of
the methodology.
3.2. Determination of the Degree of Functional Integration
In order to predict the number and degree of components
with functional integration within a battery system, the
methodology of function component matrices (FCM) has been
selected and modified. FCMs are commonly used to describe
the relation between components and functions of a complex
technical system by visualizing dependencies in matrices [6].
The components of a system level are therefore be assigned to
the top row of a FCM and the functions are assigned to the
first column. The dependencies are now marked within the
cells that are spanned by functions and components.
Commonly used values for the description of the relation are
0 and 1 (binary) or finer graduations such as 0-4.
With the evaluation of functional structures of the different
system levels a set up of FCMs is possible. In the case of the
battery module level 21 functions and 20 components have

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Alexander Tornow et al. / Procedia CIRP 29 (2015) 792 797

been identified and put into relation. In order to have the

possibility to come from a differential design to an integral
multi-material design a third dimension has been added to the
FCMs. Within these additional layers the material classes of
the components are varied (functions are fixed). Each cell
within the different FCM is now filled with a value of a three
point scale wherein 0 means the function cannot be fulfilled
by the component or the component cannot be manufactured
with the corresponded material, 1 means good fulfillment of
the function by the component and 2 means best fulfillment
of the function by the component. The rating of functions is
based upon literature research and prior studies.
The final step of this stage within this part of the presented
methodology is the identification of multi-functional
components by analyzing the columns of the different FCMs
regarding fulfillment of functions. Therefore the different
cells within one column of the FCM are checked for the best
fulfillment of the different functions. A starting point for the
analysis is a column in which a majority of functions is
fulfilled. For each function that has not been fulfilled by this
component cells in different layers or different areas of the
FCM are investigated regarding fulfillment of functions. The
analysis is stopped as soon as each required function of the
battery module has been taken into account with good or best
fulfillment and with a minimal use of different components.
3.3. Principle Design
The design of the single components cannot be fullyautomated. Therefore the user of the methodology has to use
the information that is delivered by the FCM to design multimaterial components. A support for this creative part of the
methodology is given by engineering catalogues according to
Roth [7]. These can be used to systematically widen the scope
of solutions that have been identified for one single function.
The structure of the catalogues is defined by the combination
of the different functions of the cell, module or system.
Therefore, possible solutions for the integration of functions
such as transfer electric energy and protect cells can be
found in a fast way. A special focus has been set onto existing
solutions for the integration of different materials by injection
molding and impact extrusion because of the wide spread
usage of these technologies in the market. This enables the
user to incrementally build up new components for battery
modules and check if these are suitable for the preselected
boundary conditions.
3.4. Generation of Variants
The generation of variants is done by a methodology that
has been presented in [8]. The software behind the
methodology generates variants of battery systems in a
predefined design space based upon user requirements. The
latter are the system voltage, system energy, system current,
the cell dimensions and materials as well as dimensions and
materials (material combinations) of peripheral components
of the battery module and battery system. The software
calculates the total required cell count, the different
interconnection possibilities on module and system level, the

number and arrangement of battery cells and peripheral

components within a module as well as the number and
arrangement of modules within the design space. The results
are stored within databases and linked to a CAD software in
order to visualize the result for the user and quick check for
inconsistencies.
3.5. Evaluation Criteria for Assembly and Disassembly
The evaluation of the different hierarchical levels of the
battery is done through typical design for assembly (DfA) and
design for disassembly (DfD) characteristics. Design for
assembly criteria are the part count, the joining techniques,
the number of different joining techniques, joining directions,
the part dimensions, the part weight, the fragility of parts as
well as the stiffness of parts. The design for disassembly
criteria are the number of different materials (within product
and part), the degree of materials that can be recycled easily,
the type and number of fasteners, the number of different
fasteners and the overall part number. The type and number of
joining techniques is important but already taken into account
in the design for assembly. In addition to the process related
criteria that describe assembly and disassembly, product
related criteria are taken into account for evaluation. For
battery systems these are voltage, current, energy, volumetric
energy, volumetric power, gravimetric energy, gravimetric
power and utilization of space. The structure for the
evaluation is shown in Figure 3.
Evaluation

Product

System

Module

Cell

Criteria...

Criteria...

Criteria...

Assembly &
Disassembly
System

Module

Cell

Criteria...

Criteria...

Criteria...

Fig.3Groupsofevaluationcriteriawithinthemethodology


Due to the variety of different criteria a weighting has to be
applied to the single criteria as well as to the criteria groups
(cell, module, system, product, process). The value of the
single criteria is parameterized to a 10-point scale by value
functions (linear, parabola, exponential) that have been
selected through sensitivity analyses. The final evaluation of
results is done relatively (best fulfillment of the evaluation
criteria = 100%). Apart from these criteria, which have been
applied to the simulation results, methods of time
measurement have been used for the analyses of a manual
assembly process.

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Alexander Tornow et al. / Procedia CIRP 29 (2015) 792 797

4. Use-Case
The use-case for the presented paper is a typical
conversion design battery electric vehicle with a battery
package space volume of 200 l. The package space is
distributed under the front and back row of seats as well as the
vehicle tunnel. The goal for the battery concept generation is a
battery system with a voltage of 360 V, an energy contend of
25 kWh and a maximum current of at least 200 A. The battery
cells that are used for calculation have been selected out of the
ISO/IEC PAS 16898:2012 [9]. Only pouch cell batteries have
been taken into account. This battery cell type is characterized
by its housing which is made from multi-layer aluminum
laminated film, a sealing area surrounding the cell and
terminals made from aluminum and nickel sheets. This cell
type is therefore the first multi-material component. Figure 4
shows a cell and the remarked cell characteristics.
Terminals
Multi-layer foil

Sealing area
Fig.4Characteristicsofapouchcellbattery

The module design incorporates polymer frames that carry

the battery cells, front and back plates as well as a cover
(Figure 5).
4.1. Multi-Material Module Design
With the use of the presented methodology two
components have been identified as suitable for the multimaterial design and highlighted in Figure 5.
The cover of the module incorporates the high voltage
interconnection between the different battery cells as well as
the temperature and voltage sensors. It closes the battery from
above and guarantees protection against hazards from
electrical current. Furthermore it seals the battery against
environmental influences like spraying of water. It therefore
fulfills 5 different functions and is made up from 3 different
materials.
The main function of the front and back plates is to apply
pressure to the cell stack. Additional functions are the sealing
of the cell stack against spraying of water, fixing the battery
module to another module or the system structure,
interconnecting different modules and interconnecting the
modules to the battery management system. It also fulfills 5
functions and is made from 4 different materials.

Multi-material
component

Multi-material
component


Fig.5MultiMaterialcomponentswithintheusecase

4.2. Concept Generation

The module design presented in Figure 5 has several
degrees of freedom that are used for the calculation. The
battery cell dimension and capacity varies from 162 mm x
142 mm x 10 mm (20Ah) to 343 mm x 245 mm x 10 mm
(70Ah). Due to the fact that the cell is the base component for
the whole system each peripheral component surrounding the
cell adapts to the varying cell dimension. Apart from the
dimension, the cell number and arrangement within the pouch
cell module is varied which means that the number of cells in
a row and adjacent to each other is modified. Finally the
module arrangement and module number within the system is
varied.
The result of the concept generation with these degrees of
freedom according to the system requirements mentioned in
section 4 are more than 600 different system topologies based
upon more than 100 different module designs. 28 different
pouch cell types have been taken into account.
5. Results
The cell types, module types and system types are
evaluated according to the evaluation criteria that have been
mentioned within subsection 3.5. The weighting of criteria for
the product characteristics such as gravimetric energy density
are fixed for the calculation in order to clearly identify the
impact on assembly and disassembly. The selected diagram
for the presentation of the results shows process
characteristics (i.e. assembly / disassembly) over product
characteristics (e.g. energy density). Both groups of
characteristics are normalized to 100 %. Two different sets of
results are shown within the following charts: results marked
as grey triangles incorporate multi-material components,
results marked as red rhombs do not incorporate multimaterial components.
5.1. Impact on Assembly
Figure 6 shows the impact on assembly of the generated
results in three different cases. Chart #1 shows the distribution
of results for a module focused evaluation. In this case the
assembly of single battery cells and peripheral components to
battery modules is weighted with a nine times higher
importance than the assembly of different modules to a

Alexander Tornow et al. / Procedia CIRP 29 (2015) 792 797

complete battery system. This case represents for example a

supplier of battery modules who buys battery cells and
distributes modules to end users. In terms of disassembly this
case represents for example a recycler that has to dismantle
modules to recycle these to separate the material groups.
Chart #2 of Figure 6 shows the distribution of results for
the case that the system and the module assembly are equally
rated. This specific case represents end users that have a high
degree of vertical integration within production and therefore
buy cells, produce peripheral components and assemble
complete systems. In terms of disassembly this is a typical
case for a recycler that receives complete systems to
dismantle them.
Chart #3 shows the results for the case that the module
assembly is from low importance. This case represents an end
user that buys battery modules and assembles these to battery
systems. The same end user might disassembly parts of the
system down to the module level for service purposes.
Chart #1 clearly shows the desired advantage of multifunctional components, which is the reduction of assembly
difficulties and therefore the reduction of assembly costs. The
majority of generated modules benefit from the reduction of
parts and the corresponding reduction of joining technologies
and joining directions on module level. 50 % of the
conventionally designed modules achieve lower assembly
values. Only if battery cells with a high energy capacity are
used and therefore low cell numbers per module are necessary
assembly can be simplified with differential designed
modules. To evaluate the results of the simulation, an
experimental analysis of the assembly process has been done.
Therefore the module design depicted in Figure 5 has been
manufactured, assembled and compared to the same module,
set up in differential design. The benefits of multi-material
components that have been derived from the simulation and
depicted within chart #1 of Figure 6 are mostly related to the
integrated module cover. Making use of the integrated cover
which (in our case) incorporates 15 different parts, reduces
the total number of critical assembly steps from 27 to 15.
Based upon the elimination of several (mostly time
consuming) steps such as the low voltage wire assembly
(70 s) a total assembly time reduction of 139 s (30 % of the
complete process time) could be achieved. However, if the
module assembly is not taken into account within battery
system production (chart #3), the benefits of the multimaterial cover are not totally exploitable. Rising costs for the
assembly of the system may be the consequence and it
becomes negligible if multi-material design is taken into
account. Nevertheless, an intelligent system design which
means a low number of modules within the system that are
evenly aligned and joined in equal directions can compensate
assembly difficulties. The experimental analysis of the
assembly process showed, that the integrated front and back
plates have a large influence on the assembly of the complete
system. Eight critical assembly steps can be merged into one
if multi-material front and back plates are used. Once again
the time consuming and manually performed step of the
interconnection (low and high voltage) between two modules
can be neglected. Nevertheless the advantages of the multimaterial front and back plates can only be utilized, if the

interfaces for electrical interconnection of the front and back

plates are facing to the battery system floor. This phenomenon
can also be interpreted from the simulation results depicted
within chart #3 (Figure 6).
Chart #2 shows that if system and module assembly is
considered, a multi-material approach should in any case be
taken into consideration. Benefits from intelligent system
designs and assembly optimized multi-material battery
modules can be combined to minimize assembly efforts
within battery production. Within the experimental evaluation
20 out of 43 assembly steps could be neglected, if multimaterial design has been applied to the module.

Assembly Characteristics [%]

796

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100

100

90

90

90

80

80

80

70

70

70

60

60

60

50

50

50

40

40

40

30

30

30

20

20

20

10

10

1) Focus on module
assembly

0
50

60

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80

Product Characteristics [%]

100

10

2) System and module

assembly equally rated

90

50

60

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80

90

Product Characteristics [%]

Integral
design

3) Focus on system
assembly

0
100

50

60

70

80

90

100

Product Characteristics [%]

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design

Fig.6Resultsimpactonassembly

5.2. Impact on Disassembly

Equivalent to the evaluation of the impact on assembly the
impact on the disassembly is presented in three different
charts that differ with respect to module and system
disassembly consideration (Figure 7).
The complicated disassembly of multi-material
components in combination with fasteners that are not easily
removable has a strong influence onto the evaluation and is
obvious when Figures 6 and 7 are compared.
Within disassembly the influence of multi-material
components becomes even clearer if solely module
disassembly is taken into account. The value of the majority
of results that showed advantages within assembly drops and
conventionally designed modules show better results. This
can be traced back to the complex integration of different
materials like aluminum, copper and steel into a polymer
matrix (in this case PA6).
Equally to the results on assembly, the impact of multimaterial components decreases if the focus of disassembly is
set onto the system level. The results of chart #3 within
Figures 6 and 7 are almost similar.

Disassembly Characteristics [%]

Alexander Tornow et al. / Procedia CIRP 29 (2015) 792 797

100

100

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90

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90

80

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70

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50

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40

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30

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20

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10

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1) Focus on module
disassembly

0
50

60

70

80

90

Product Characteristics [%]

100

10

2) System and module

disassembly equally rated

0
50

60

70

80

90

Product Characteristics [%]

Integral
design

3) Focus on system
disassembly

100

50

60

70

80

90

100

Product Characteristics [%]

Differential
design


Fig.7Resultsimpactondisassembly


The low value for the disassembly can be traced back to

the selected battery module cover design. The multi-material
component is laser welded to the terminals of each battery cell
and can therefore only be dismantled through the destruction
of the complete product. In this specific case the multimaterial approach leads to a destruction of 5 different
component groups in contrast to only one component group if
the module had been set up in differential design.
5.3. Impact on Product Characteristics
The product characteristics that have been taken into
account are the system energy, system voltage, utilization of
space as well as the volumetric and gravimetric energy
density of the modules and systems. The gravimetric energy
density has been weighted with 35 % to identify the impact on
weight reduction for the different battery variants more
clearly.
Figures 6 and 7 show that modules that incorporate multimaterial designed components can have an average advantage
of approximately 10 % in comparison to conventionally
designed module components. This can be explained through
slightly lower masses which are achieved through a reduction
of joining techniques such as screwing or riveting as well as
material selection with reduced density. The volumetric
characteristics can be slightly raised with multi-material
components through a better utilization of space due to
primary forming technologies such as injection molding of
polymers.
6. Conclusion & Outlook
The presented methodology accelerates the design and
selection of multi-material components for novel battery
systems by visualizing the impact on assembly and
disassembly in relation to the product characteristics. It
therefore offers the possibility of cost reduction within the
product as well as process development. Furthermore it
widens the view for solutions that might have been overseen
during product development through the automation of CAD

797

data processing. Within the given use-case more than 600

different variants have been evaluated which would be
extremely time consuming if done manually. For the example
given within this paper the use of multi-material components
can have a positive influence on assembly, disassembly and
product characteristics if battery module and system level or
solely system level is focused. It has to be remarked that a
different selection of multi-material components or a different
selection of battery cell types will change the outcome of the
methodology and a separate investigation of the influences
has to be done.
Nevertheless, several steps within the typical product
development process cannot be bypassed, such as the detailed
design of the component, which is time consuming and
therefore cost intensive. Furthermore manufacturing
technologies and materials have to be examined
experimentally and results have to be assigned to the
methodology to achieve outcomes that are more precise. This
is also true for the DfA and DfD criteria selection.
Acknowledgements
This work was partially carried out within the project
FlexBatt (18379N) which is funded by the German Federal
Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) and the
project ALIVE which is funded by the European Commission.
We would like to thank all funding organizations.
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