MARBEL PROJECT
Manufacturing and assembly of modular and reusable Electric Vehicle battery for environment-friendly and lightweight mobility
MARBEL focuses on the need for fast charging and long-lasting batteries to boost end-user demands, while applying high modularity and easy assembly and developing novel testing methodologies.
The project, coordinated by Eurecat Technology Center, will design, develop and demonstrate new modular, compact, lightweight and high-performance battery packs together with flexible and robust battery management systems for battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, while maintaining safety levels, allowing fast, high quality and cost-effective large-scale production and following ecodesign principles.
MARBEL modules, easy to pack together and to disassemble, are expected to ease the manufacturing and dismantling of different battery configurations sharing the same production process and common elements. MARBEL will develop and qualify future and innovative performance- and safety- related test procedures of developed functionalities such as the use of miniaturised housings, a flexible test-bench simulating integration electric vehicle conditions (electric Vehicle In-the-Loop) and artificial intelligence as a tool to reduce the time of laboratory experiments.
The project concepts, starting at TRL4 from results obtained in previous projects, aim to reach an average of TRL7-8 with new developments tested and demonstrated in operational environment.
Start - end date
1 January 2021 – 31 March 2025
Duration
51 months
Funded under
Horizon 2020 programme – H2020-EU.3.4
Project phases
01.
MARBEL requirements set up
Setup the requirements for safety, modularity, 2nd use, performance and ecodesign02.
Development of solutions and components
Design of the charging station, upscaling the thermal management system and BMS prediction and maintenance actions
03.
Battery manufacturing, assembly and dismantling
Feasibility studies, Design for Manufacturing and Design for Assembly activities, module and battery pack assembly, integration in the electric vehicle-in-the-loop and dismantling operations
04.
Validation and demonstration
Development and definition of innovative performance and safety related test procedures, 2nd life applications addressed and demonstratedOUTPUTS
Expected results
Electric Vehicle Battery Pack
Demonstration of a complete battery pack, subcomponents, ultra-fast charging and thermal system at electric-vehicle-in-the-loop level
Battery management system
Battery management system, smart cell manager and wireless communications integrated in the battery pack
Failure prediction and maintenance
Advanced estimation algorithms verified for predicting early failure
2nd life applications
Testing of 2nd life applications in microgrid environment
Modules demonstration
Demonstration of modules and battery pack fully assembled and dismantling
Research & DEVELOPMENT
Beyond the state of the art
01.
Advanced battery packs and materials
Implementation of a dismantling and refurbishment process of the battery during design. Design for Disassembly (DfD) methodology will enable a sustainable battery pack ready for 2nd use and dismantling. In MARBEL’s first stage, a dismantling and modularity protocol will be created covering aspects such as safety, modularity, second use, recyclability and ecodesign.
02.
Lightweight and sustainable Battery Packaging
MARBEL will focus on lightweighting the housing and most of the metallic parts of a battery pack. The project will ecodesign an optimised cost-effective housing based on recycled aluminium extruded profiles, using innovative simulation techniques to optimise the material quantity for the housing.
03.
Solutions and processes for a sustainable dismantling and 2nd life
The current recycling processes of battery packs are not profitable, being very expensive energetically, while there is still not a clear availability of efficient technologies in recycling. MARBEL proposes a testing and classification standard development for used batteries, focused on analysing and determining their suitability in 2nd life applications.
04.
Modular and flexible battery management systems
Current battery management systems solutions impose longer development time for battery systems since the they must be fully developed for each application. MARBEL approach consists of developing a battery management system that is not tailored to any specific battery and that can be adapted to a large variety of cells, modules and batteries with different sizes, voltages and capacity.
05.
Ultra-fast charging strategies and enhanced thermal management
Efforts in electric vehicles charging industry have been focused in reducing charging times whilst maintaining high efficiency and safety. MARBEL will develop a charging station prepared for high-power charging and the development of an innovative thermal management system to cool battery cells more efficiently.
06.
Procedures for characterisation and validation of future performance and safety
MARBEL aims to improve state-of-the-art test procedures reducing time and cost while improving the quality and quantity of knowledge gathered about different systems. This will be achieved by the implementation of testing at early stages, data processing with AI, the validation of a mechanic behaviour of novel housing with a miniaturised version and the validation of the system performance at full scale.
