The importance of air tightness in the battery’s production aims to prevent the battery from being impacted by the environment with undesirable effects like pressure, temperature change and the appearance of moisture in the housing. The quality control process occurs in the production line and is a mandatory step for every battery that is produced. Therefore, having an optimized process for the specified battery is an important way to reduce production time and as a consequence lower the production cost. The studied process is the Massflow method. It consists of using air under pressure to analyze the leakrate of the studied volume.
This study aims at developing a numerical model to simulate the stabilization of the pressure around a battery’s module in a test box. Accordingly, a validation of the numerical simulation is required and a experimental setup is put into place.
A 3D printed copy of a module was created in order to assure that no leak can occur within the module and that any numerical twin will be exact same. The test box was linked to a pump that allowed the control of the initial pressure within the test box. Then a connection to the ambient pressure was created and monitored. The study was completed with the use of a pressure sensor in order to monitor the stabilization of the pressure inside the system and compared it with the simulations.
A digital twin was also used. The variables that were compared were the pressure changes in the volume. This study enabled the visualization of the air around the module during the process. For the numerical model, Smoothed Particles Hydrodynamics (SPH) was used. This method uses a Lagrangian point a view to tackle the simulation, meaning the fluid is discretized into several particles that will interact together.
Finally, this study validates the numerical model by comparing both the numerical and experimental data. It also studies and describes the air flow inside the test box around the module and the pressure stabilization at any particular point.