Lasers4MaaS Online Workshop: High-Speed Laser Welding of Battery Cooling Plates
Overview
Battery cooling plates are key components of EV battery thermal management systems, where liquid coolant is used to maintain stable cell temperatures and improve battery performance and lifetime. Today, their manufacture commonly relies on controlled atmosphere brazing, a process that requires significant energy input and offers limited manufacturing flexibility.
Laser welding is a promising alternative that can eliminate furnace heating, provide greater manufacturing flexibility, and remain economically viable even at lower production utilisation rates. However, to fully realise these advantages in high-volume EV manufacturing, laser welding must simultaneously meet stringent requirements for both weld quality and productivity. For a representative cooling plate requiring approximately 25 m of welds and a cycle time of 60 seconds per plate, welding speeds of over 400 mm/s are required. At these high speeds, however, the process becomes increasingly challenging. Defects such as excessive bead elevation, undercut formation at the weld toes, humping, and insufficient weld width at the interface can become predominant, potentially compromising the functional performance of the cooling plate.
So, how can high speed laser welding deliver both the productivity and quality required for next generation EV battery cooling plates? Join us for the second Lasers4MaaS online workshop on 15th October to discover how we are tackling these challenges by combining latest advances in dynamic beam shaping with high speed laser welding, paving the way towards high productivity manufacturing of battery cooling plates.
Agenda
- 15:10 to 15:25 The OEM requirements to produce battery cooling plates – Piergiuseppe Gianotti, Product Development Manager, CORNAGLIA
- 15:25 to 15:40 Latest advances using CIVAN dynamic beam shaping laser – Rachel Assa, Head of Materials and laser process development at Civan Advanced Technologies
- 15:40 to 15:55 Process development combining MHz-scale dynamic laser beam and kHz-scale beam wobbling in high-speed laser welding of battery cooling plates – Pasquale Franciosa, Head of Laser Beam Welding Group at WMG, The University of Warwick
- 15:55 to 16:10 From process development to production implementation for high speed laser welding of battery cooling plates – Tobias Hohmann, Team Manager R&D Technologies at FFT Produktionssysteme GmbH & Co. KG
Registration
The workshop is free to attend, but advance registration is required. Register here.
Moderator
Antonio Castelo, PhD
Technology Expert for Bio-Medical and Lasers
EPIC- European Photonics Industry Consortium