Induvos
At Induvos, we’re proud to be at the forefront of technological development, supported by the EXIST Transfer of Research Grant from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action. With funding of around 750,000 Euros, we are dedicated to significantly enhancing lightweight construction and safety in the automotive industry with our advanced software solution.
Our Software
Our software is particularly useful in improving battery protection in electric vehicles. Batteries are crucial but sensitive parts of vehicles, and their safety in accidents is very important. In accidents, especially side collisions with objects like poles, trees, or other vehicles, it’s important to prevent structures from penetrating into the battery cells or exceeding set force levels. To achieve this, the car’s side sills, the structures under the doors between the front and rear tires, are crucial. They absorb the impact energy and limit penetration depth. Our software is designed to optimize these sill profiles. It goes beyond just considering the thickness and shape, by also including the cross-section’s topology. With our innovative algorithms, we analyze the energies and deformations during a crash and automatically suggest improvements. The result is an optimized profile developed from an initial design that meets crash requirements with minimal material use and is suitable for mass production.
To demonstrate our software, we have created an example with the battery of an Audi e-tron in a side pole impact. In the image, you’ll see a green-marked aluminum extrusion profile. This profile works with the sill to protect the battery. We started with a basic profile and aimed to reduce the mass while meeting certain conditions: the force on the profile should not exceed 610 kN, the pole should not penetrate more than 85 mm, and contact between the battery casing and cells (checked at 15 node pairs) must be avoided. After several iterations, our software developed an optimized profile structure that reduces mass by 13,5% and meets all conditions, evaluating 172 different designs. This example impressively demonstrates how our software fulfills safety requirements for vehicle battery systems with the least possible use of materials. For more information about our software or to see it in action, we invite you to contact us.
The presented study is based on a finite element model that we originally obtained from Caresoft Global, but further processed in a technical case study by ALUMOBILITY. The latter also created a model in which steel structures were replaced by aluminum structures. We would like to acknowledge the contributions of both Caresoft Global and ALUMOBILITY for providing and enhancing the finite element model that enabled our study.