Determining the structural life of an electric vehicle battery from road loads

Although the electrical system is important in the development of electric vehicles, the durability of the battery system against mechanical loads and the performance of the battery against shock reactions are just as important. The objective of this study is to develop a methodology to determine the structural life of the battery of the C-platform sports utility vehicle (SUV). For this purpose, a power spectral density (PSD) durability test profile is generated and compared to battery test standards such as ISO 6469:2019, AK-LH 5.21 and SAE J2380. Analytical Virtual Proving Ground (VPG), a multibody dynamics simulation model, is also developed and correlated to test data. The results show that FDS values for AK-LH is higher than the fatigue damage of the collected vehicle data, while the FDS results for ISO standard are lower compared to the vehicle data. The results also indicate that the loads in the longitudinal (x-direction) and lateral (y-direction) directions are different. Therefore, loads of different amplitudes should be used for these directions, contrary to SAE J2380 and USABC standards. Finally, it is concluded that the VPG model can be used for determining the fatigue life when there is no test data, thanks to its high accuracy.