After several process steps, the time has come to close the battery tray with a cover. This final stage of the electric vehicle (EV) battery assembly process ensures the battery is ready for use. But nevertheless, this is also a highly complex and challenging step where fast cycle times and serviceability is of the utmost importance.
An essential constraint at this point of the EV battery assembly process is that the housing is only accessible from the outside. This needs to be considered when selecting the appropriate cover-to-tray assembly solution. The bond must also be detachable to facilitate maintenance and dismantling—the latter for end-of-life recycling.
We offer two alternative technology options for assembling the cover to the tray:
- Automated Tightening with Integrated Powerhead
- Flow Drill Fastening Technology
Increasing productivity with automation
When tightening the cover to the tray with an integrated powerhead, the cover is mounted on the tray. The integrated centric powerhead and screw feeder system are guided with 3D robot guidance to the correct position. The cover is automatically tightened to the tray, followed by the final quality inspection with a machine vision solution. This assembly solution is easy to integrate into the overall assembly process and, thanks to the level of automation, also drives increased productivity.
Providing reliable, high quality and reversible joints
K-Flow, Atlas Copco´s flow drill fastening technology, utilizes a fastener rotated at high speed, applying pressure to warm up the material. This allows the material to pierce the material stack, cutting the thread in a single process to provide efficient and flexible hybrid joining of multi-material stacks. Requiring one-sided access only, the K-Flow process provides reliable, high-quality joints that are reversible. In addition, the K-Flow joining process does not require surface preparation, ensuring that the metallic components are in a conductive bond and form a “Faraday cage” to prevent electromagnetic interference.
Featuring an innovative helix design, the K-Flow HLX 70 magazine, mounted on the K-Flow joining system, is a fast and sustainable element supply with a unique magazine technology featuring a hoseless design. The solution can reduce cycle times by up to a third but also significantly reduce contamination at the joint. The latter is of particular importance in the sensitive EV battery assembly process. In comparison with a feeding solution that uses compressed air, the hoseless design can save up to the equivalent of 181 metric tons of CO2 emissions annually.
Precise robot guidance solution for multi-spindle systems
Precise positioning of the applicator unit is of absolute importance for the assembly process to be performed to the highest quality standards. MONO3D is a precise robot guidance solution for multi-spindle systems. It enables unsorted components to be automatically picked from a pallet or component carrier, making it a time and cost-efficient addition to the module assembly process. The system determines the position of an object in all six degrees of freedom in less than one second, after which the information on the component´s exact position is then used for precise robot path planning.
MONO3D is a highly flexible system that is easy to configure to any requirements and can be ready for use within a matter of hours with any robot.
Watch the video to learn more about our solution:
