Welcome, everyone, to the latest edition of the Reimagine Mobility Podcast series. I'm here with Sean O'Kane and Michael Bambula from AVL. Michael works in our Advanced Simulation Technologies Group and Sean works in our technology development group. Welcome, both guys. Thanks for joining me. Maybe we'll start out with you guys are both working in the battery space. EVs, I think we can say it's booming. Everybody needs batteries. Everybody needs technology.
Help and technologies as it relates to electrified propulsion systems. And maybe to start out with with Sean to kind of tee off. Michael Here. Sean When it comes to battery development, as you've been doing for many, many years, I would assume simulation over the years has become more and more important in your work. But how important really is today's simulation when you compare it to maybe five years ago? Well, even just five years ago, it's it's improved greatly.
And one of the benefits that it brings is its ability to maybe even eliminate some testing, some actual physical testing. So you can do in simulation what used to take a lot of physical testing. You'd have to build samples, get them out to to test and and and then take a look at those results and and apply that to your design.
Where is in that with the way that the tools are able to do now is in the design phase being able to accurately predict some of those tests and maybe even some accommodations then that you could make in the design to say, fix some flaws or weaknesses. Michael Maybe just the same question to you. Five years ago we did simulation tools. Are simulation tools existent in batteries. Now we're five years later and certainly batteries even more important than they were five years ago.
How far along has simulation technology come to to keep up with let's say, new demand in in not know, not necessarily more, but more demand on the tool to do even more work for us to develop this technology even faster and better.
Yeah. Yeah. I would say five years ago the tools did exist, but within the past five years, especially with the changes that we've seen in the mobility industry going towards the alternative propulsion technologies, there's been an increase in development efforts and you know, as Sean has said, you know, the story is always that simulation can enhance a test, you know, So instead of doing a deep, really, you know, detailed test matrix, you can test a few points to develop the model
and then virtually probe the other areas of the matrix in simulation, which do, you know, helps gain insights, whether it's it's worth it to even devote real hard resources on those additional test areas. And then, yeah, it basically gives you more insight. You're able to see different temperatures across the entire system, which you wouldn't be able to just pure testing, you'd have to thermocouple different regions. So yeah, overall the space is exciting. A lot of development.
When we talking about batteries and you just highlight a little bit that the temperature measurements right thermal management, one of the key maybe sometimes a little forgotten to the to the more general public. But you know, Sean's nodding right away. The thermal management, one of the key challenges. How close? Michael, are we when it comes to correlation between what we actually measure or are able to measure in the battery and what we're simulating, how close is that that correlation today?
And how far have we come from five years ago to kind of highlight maybe how the simulation capabilities have increased or the modeling accuracy? Maybe? Yeah. So I'd say on the on the thermal management side, it depends on what levels of thermal modeling you're doing. So just on normal battery operation in use, you know, nominal operation, I think we we have really close correlation between test to 3D, CFD to even system model.
We've demonstrated that there's a very strong tight temperature correlation of a few degrees. I would say this is really important because you can't over cool the battery, you know, the with, with older thermal management methods, you just want to maintain a temperature operating point. But that in a battery electrified powertrain has a tradeoff of range.
You know, if you're over cooling, you have a diminishing return with respect to range because you're dedicating more power to run the palms and the auxiliaries. But so that's the interesting challenge, is to understand that to fine tune that that temperature control with respect to not impacting your range. Now when we go to other deeper like more I guess, chaotic temperature operating points, like a thermal runaway, that's where that's an ongoing area of research within the industry.
I would say AVL is very strongly positioned with our testing capabilities, our in-house knowledge on the engineering side and then on the simulation side to blend all those together. And then really understand that phenomenon at been more depth and model, that phenomenon which is very high value, high risk, even in a testing environment.
So we deliver both value, decrease value, decrease cost, exponential cash, exponential for those tests as well as decreased risk to the, you know, personnel who perform these tests. And Sean, maybe a very similar question along those lines and feel free to comment on what Michael just said. But but for you that is responsible to lead teams in developing off again, let's say batteries, modules, packs we're simulation playing maybe a much bigger role or a much more key role versus versus auto.
So where do you use simulation more? Rely more on simulation and which ones may be less? Well, this, as Michael pointed out, for for the potential of thermal propagation and the mitigation of thermal propagation. It's an amazing tool. You can say assume that you have an event in a battery pack.
It's going to event gases and it's it's it's being able to manage when that happens and direct maybe those gases in a particular way, knowing what materials might be in the path of those gases and how combustible they might be or what they might add to the event. Or you can then figure out how they can not add to the event, right. All in the simulation. So being able to safely handle a thermal event, it's an amazing tool.
And then that is leading towards eliminating the possibility of a thermal event and at the cell level, module level and pack level as well. Some OEMs and some in the industries have have shared that they believe they can get away with with physical testing and do everything in the virtual world. But let's take thermal management, for example, right here, because it is again a key topic.
Sean, do you see that is actually possible to not test a physical battery specifically for the potential of of a thermal runaway event and do it all in simulation? And if simulation tells us we designed the batteries so well that it's not going to happen, you're good with it. Or are you more like, yes, we can push the boundaries of how much physical testing we need to do, but the physical testing, at least from what you can send in in the near or even long term future, is not going away.
Can you give me a perspective on that? I would say that in the in the near term that the physical testing is still a very useful tool and in a number of ways it can tell you exactly what's happening with your design and with with with your pack as well as feed data back into the model so that the simulation tools become stronger with that data. And then that hopefully in the near future could lead to either less testing or maybe even no testing.
Okay. Michael, what do you see when you talk to customers for for some of the tools that you're responsible for? Is is their goal to eliminate physical testing? Is their goal to reduce the physical properties you need and the time you need, which is obviously way more expensive than doing it digitally or in simulation or what are they mainly looking for in simulation tools? Again, let's stay with batteries here for a moment.
What I would say, at least on the battery, when it comes to the cell side of things, they will likely have to test the due to the phenomenon of thermal runaway being pretty. It's understood, but the actual root cause of these events is not always well understood.
So they always will have to test the cell for the energy release and how that looks as far as when we get to the packing module level, they want to do more of this in simulation because those events when you start doing an energy release on an entire pack is very, very I'd say there's only a few testing locations in the world that can do this safely. And as well, you only get one shot. You know, it's a destructive test.
So if you have prototype cells, if you have prototype enclosures for the pack, prototype materials, anything like that, those will likely be sacrificed for the test. So they want to be able to reduce as much of that as possible because that is a is the definition of a high risk, really expensive test is is a prototype destructive test.
So yeah, we see strong, strong appetite from our customers within the industry to reduce the amount of those that they perform and perform as much of it in simulation. And then to at the end of those tests sometimes. But the evidence literally is not there. It's gone. It's a destructive test.
So the simulation, you can go deeper into an event while actually seeing what might be happening, Whereas in a in a physical test, once the initial event is has moved on to say, well, it's propagated, more and more evidence is destroyed and even your instrumentation can be destroyed in that event. No, very true.
When we take a battery for a moment and let's leave testing out that we just talked about that we're clearly trying to strive, as Sean, as you mentioned, and Michael as well, to try and eliminate the physical testing and replace it with with simulation or digital.
When we take simulation tools, how much longer would the design of a battery again, testing aside, but the design of a battery take today, if we have to simulate and capabilities of what we had, let's say five years ago, how much longer Michael would you see? And then will ask Sean the same thing. Would you see the battery design? Take it. Is it you know, is it 50% more manpower? Is it 50% longer? Any ideas on that? Yeah, I would say it.
It's that question of if you I guess if you devote more resources, does it necessarily speed up the development process? I think through simulation you're able to really investigate more and more. So if you did it the traditional way maybe five, seven years ago, you see definitely a time improvement. I would estimate on the order of, you know, 20% or so, maybe even 30, 33% a third of the time cut by doing a lot of these in virtual.
But yeah, and I think the bigger question is not so much about the time or even the cost. It's what performance is left on the table. And so you see many people would be able to design to put a battery pack together. Now is that the most efficient design? Is that the safest design?
Is that the one that that will yield the most range out of the system that I think is the bigger question and especially how competitive a lot of these battery electric vehicle companies are to stand out when it comes to EPA range testing and, you know, the reassuring the customer of range anxiety or that the battery will stay within a warranty and they won't have to replace it prematurely, I think that's the bigger benefit that simulation comes to as well as, you know, obviously decreasing
development time and saving on the cost of the development. Okay. Yeah, it's hard to disagree with that. And and I think that so even at the prototype level with some analysis work being done on their say for durability even or you know how it's going to survive actually functioning in a vehicle, making sure that high voltage is not going to be shaken or rubbed or exposed. Then for whatever reason, through use, being able to simulate that early can almost eliminate the stuff.
With our first pass, we're coming to our customers with a product that meets their requirements better than it did before five years ago. So okay. And maybe for a for a moment at separate simulations or let's let's ask the question for Sean first and then we go to Michael for more simulation.
Sean, if you had to if you had to list one to maybe three areas where you feel customers start looking for a battery, oftentimes either forget about or don't pay enough attention to or give enough credit as it relates to how big of a challenge it might be. What would these things be? What would these areas be as it is thermal management, as we talked a little bit about, is it I don't know, the crash worthiness, Is it the weight, the cooling system, the complete system?
What are some of the things that you feel in your experience? Oftentimes you wish customers will get a maybe a higher appreciation for it. And what you feel right now is, generally speaking, not for each individual customer, but generally speaking. Well, I'd like to say that all of our customers think of everything before they come to the table. But obviously there are some things that get overlooked.
I think that the amount of detail that needs to happen in the thermal management system, as you mentioned, is something that that may not always get its due diligence. And in some of the some of the surprises that can happen then are well, can at worst case be catastrophic and in other cases than not, not get the optimum, say, range or performance out of the batteries. Right.
The the the amount of detail that goes into that to say maintain a delta T across the pack keeping all of the cells at a very close to same temperature is is very difficult especially when you're getting into the larger packs that we are now some of the trucks that are that are happening are very large packs, multiple tiers and being able to keep all of those cells within, say, five degrees C is very difficult.
So there's quite a bit of effort that has to go into that that that sometimes is overlooked. And then if you're starting from scratch with the BMS the amount of effort that it takes to develop that software to cover all of the details that are required in a battery pack takes a really good amount of effort and you have to spend some time there to make sure that that is as good as it can be. It keeps your battery as safe as it can be, your vehicle, and then by nature, the passengers as well.
So those are those are two aspects that I would say that require more attention, say, at the beginning than than there are. I again. You bring it up again, a good point. Software, even though oftentimes we think of a battery as a as a as a physical, as a mechanical, as a chemical thing, just like in most other domains on a on a modern vehicle, on the ground, in the air, and in space for sure as well. Software plays a critical role. And with that, a perfect segue way over to to Michael.
Right. Simulation is software. At the end of the day, what do you see with your customers one day when they come to you? What are they maybe what are many of them missing when it comes to simulation? Maybe they envision it's going to be way more powerful than than what it really is or what simulation today is capable. Is it the exact opposite? They think what it can do is is only a fraction of we can do, right. I always look at, for example, Excel spreadsheet, right?
I probably use 1% of the capability that that thing has, and I don't recognize how much more it does because it does for me. What it needs is that's similar in simulation. If your with your tools or is it is it a customer the exact opposite. They want more. They feel like it should be able to do more than one is already does. Yeah, I would say it's it's sort of mixed and I would say customers are always pushing the envelope for the development side to create more and more capability.
So a lot of them, a big fixation is is on battery aging. And this is something that is a very deep area of development within AVL in order to better capture that phenomenon and prescribe actually the the causes of the aging. And then ideally customers want to tie that back to the use case and on the BMS side to attempt to mitigate that those phenomenon.
I think as far as what customers I think are missing when they go straight into the development of a pack and really don't appreciate or I guess utilize the full capability out of simulation is the aging side of things. It's it's a very complex phenomenon. It needs some testing data that's very tedious to get. It's not a difficult test. It's just a test that takes a long time because aging takes time and it will only work in the real world here. So every second passes is a real second.
But at the end of something like that, you know, if they put in that upfront work and get these these data and work to understand what's what's occurring, then in simulation, you can run thousands of these type of scenarios in a fraction of the time it would take.
And that leads, I think, to a good point that Sean was making on the BMS side on the software side, you would then be able to develop more robust software to control the battery and understand really how the battery is behaving and what to look out for and really control it in in a more optimum fashion. And I think that, quite frankly, is the key differentiator among the different battery electric vehicles.
You know, everybody does the teardown, everybody knows what cell everyone is using, everyone knows the how, the thermal management loop looks, what fluids were pumps, what people don't have really insight to is in the software, the control strategy, which simulation will allow you to develop more robust solution. Very good. And quickly, maybe before we wrap it up, Michael, you first.
How much does, if any, the simulation tools we're using today need to change when we really get into, as we're doing now, solid state batteries? Is there a change we need to do? Is there an additional feature or function, new models? Give us a little bit of an idea of what the storage trend what does this transition over to solid state batteries mean for the tools that we currently use today to develop batteries, simulate batteries?
I think for the solid state battery, there's a fragile, I guess, component to it where the the you can damage the battery by having it exposed to too much NVH So I think there would have to be a combination of electrochemical phenomenon within this this model as well as you know NVH sort of durability analysis or perspective on what loads that the battery is actually exposed to the cell specifically.
And so I think that is an area where we're there's still a lot of meat on the bone per se, you know, because these these experts in NVH and definitely not chemistry experts and chemistry experts are definitely not, you know, mechanical fatigue experts. So this is this is the area, I think, that that would have to be sort of united. Okay. And Sean, similar question, working with liquid based then now going to solid state batteries, what do you see some of the challenges there that are new?
Well, the goal is, is to achieve energy density, right, so that you can get the same range out of a smaller space in the vehicle or increased range out of the same space in the vehicle. And and being able to package those in a tighter space and with more energy can create issues for thermal propagation.
Like we started off talking about thermal propagation and thermal events as is high on every customer's list and being able to mitigate or eliminate that is is going to be key and being able to simulate the energy that is within those solid state cells. And and if something were to go wrong, being able to to accurately predict that and analyze it is going to be key. And I think that the the tools that Michael uses this is an outstanding example of being able to do that.
Okay. And last question to both of you. People that want to become more familiar with, again, in this case, battery development, battery technology simulation, do you listen to podcasts like this one? Do you? Sean and then Michael afterwards? But Sean, what do you get? What do you do to keep up with the latest and greatest battery technologies, battery development technologies as it maybe relates to simulation, as it maybe relates to BMS Software or thermal runaway?
Is it you read magazines, you go to training courses, you attend conferences, all of the above, none of it. What do you specifically do? Absolutely all of the above. I mean, conferences are a great place to be able to to to see what is up and coming. A lot of customers and a lot of vendors are there, too. So we can we can all be talking on the same topics and on the same level of a lot of a lot of people that are on the cutting edge of technology keep their secrets pretty close to their chest.
So you've got to have good relationships with those folks and and with a broad depth of both sides of that. Customers and vendors, we're able to keep a pulse on what's happening in the industry, whether it be new Solid-State style cells or immersed cooling, whatever it might be. We're able to stay at the forefront of that and includes research as well, as you pointed out. Okay. Okay. Michael, what about a follow up for you on the on the simulation side? I assume it's conferences as well.
Is it benchmarking or using other people's tools to get more familiar? Are talking more customers are talking to people like Sean internally, right. To figure out, hey, what can we do better where things going but shed a little bit of light on as it relates from from your perspective or you get industry updates when you keep on the on the cutting edge? Yeah, Yeah. So I mean, I reference a lot of literature. I read research papers, we stay in touch with what's going on in academia.
So it's frequent meetings with the academia in this area. And as Sean had said, you know, it's a, it's an area, it's very secretive, but as well, there's a lot of hype within the industry, too. So you got to kind of filter out the noise and also for the secrecy side, you got to connect the dots. So, you know, sometimes people allude to things in meetings or speak in sort of a code.
You have to be knowledgeable enough to connect the dots of what they're saying, to understand what direction they are actually headed. And I think that's a that's a that's a strong skill set that we have at AVL to be able to do that and help the customers while maintaining, you know, strict confidentiality with them for the work we do. So, yeah, it's all of the above, really.
Just taking all the all the information and going to conferences, reading research papers and maintaining industry connections. Very good. So again, we, we never stop learning. We just keep on learning day in and day out, right? The university days or college days or high school days are never over. You continue to work so very good. Thanks, Michael. Thanks, Sean, for your time. And thanks, everybody for tuning in. Thanks for listening. To Reimagine Mobility Podcast.
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