Including Batteries in Electric or Hybrid Car Crash Simulations: a path forward with LS-DYNA ®

View Video Presentation: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2021-1278.vid Computer aided engineering (CAE) tools that predict the response of a Li-ion battery pack to various abuse conditions can support analysis during the design phase and reduce the need for physical testing. Simulations of the multi-physics response of external or internal short circuits can lead to optimized system designs for automotive crash scenarios. The physics under such simulations is quite complex though, coupling structural, thermal, electrical, and electrochemical. Moreover, it spans length scales with orders of magnitude differences between critical events such as internal shorts happening at the millimeter level, triggering catastrophic events like the thermal runaway of the full battery. To tackle those challenges, the current work proposes a model based on a distributed equivalent circuits approach that allows the simulation of voltage drop and subsequently captures the local heating triggered by an internal short. This internal short is activated based on solid mechanics considerations. The objective is also to keep reasonable sized models which can be included in full vehicle crash simulations.