RWTH Aachen Awarded With the Bavarian State Prize in "Electric Mobility: Storage Technology and Systems Integration"

The Bavarian State Prize in Electric Mobility, the so-called eCarTec award, goes to North Rhine-Westphalia. On October 15, 2013, at the eCarTec fair in Munich, seven research teams received prizes for their innovative developments in the field of electric mobility.

 

In an award ceremony on Tuesday, RWTH researchers from the Institute of Automotive Engineering (ika) and the Institute for Power Electronics and Electrical Drives (ISEA) received the Bavarian State Prize in Electric Mobility in the category “Storage Technology and Systems Integration.”

The so-called eCarTec Award, awarded by the Bavarian state government, recognizes innovative achievement in seven categories. Each prize winning team receives an award of 7500 euros, which is to support new developments in electric mobiltity.

Crash-deformable Battery System for Electric Cars

The prize is to recognize the RWTH institutes’ research and the resulting development of a modular, crash-deformable battery system for electric vehicles. As part of the "e performance" research project, jointly conducted with carmaker Audi, the researchers developed a battery concept which integrates individual battery cells in larger units, so-called macrocells. The design and prismatic form of these macrocells makes it possible for them to shift relative to one another, so that the battery pack can be deformed in case of a crash. Tests have indicated that this safety concept can even withstand a side impact with a pole. Due to its modularity, the concept can be implemented in cars of different sizes and power ratings.

The development of the battery concept was part of the “e performance“ project jointly conducted by RWTH Aachen institutes, the companies Audi and Bosch, as well as other partners from research and industry. The project, which receives funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, investigates a broad range of topics in the field of electric mobility.

The project was completed in 2012 with the presentation of a sports car prototype implementing the newly developed technologies, including the award winning battery concept.