Welding Challenges and Quality Assurance in Electric Vehicle Battery Pack Manufacturing

Electric vehicles’ batteries, referred to as Battery Packs (BPs), are composed of interconnected battery cells and modules. The utilisation of different materials, configurations, and welding processes forms a plethora of different applications. This level of diversity along with the low maturity of welding designs and the lack of standardisation result in great variations in the mechanical and electrical quality of the joints. Moreover, the high-volume production requirements, meaning the high number of joints per module/BP, increase the absolute number of defects. The first part of this study focuses on associating the challenges of welding application in battery assembly with the key performance indicators of the joints. The second part reviews the existing methods for quality assurance which concerns the joining of battery cells and busbars. Additionally, the second part of this paper identifies the general trends and the research gaps for the most widely adopted welding methods in this domain, while it renders the future directions

Increasing the industrial uptake of additive manufacturing processes: A training framework

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is one of the key technologies of Industry 4.0, offering unique advantages and capabilities. The interest in AM has been steadily increasing, leading to its rapid recent growth and improvement in all its aspects. However, its wider adoption is hindered by various barriers, the most important of which are the relatively high initial investment cost, part quality issues, limited material choices, and lack of expertise. The research community, AM machine developers, and larger enterprises are continuously contributing to the improvement of the first three factors. Nonetheless, the same cannot be stated for the barrier of limited expertise, leading the industrial sector to a perpetual lack of knowledge and, therefore, reluctance for a potential AM uptake. This study is addressing the need of the industrial sector for structured and organized expertise training for the fruitful exploitation of AM, paving the road for its wider application. The guidelines for an industrial-oriented AM training curriculum are set through the development of an AM training framework. The different AM thematic areas are classified into educational modules, which are separately analyzed, considering the participants’ active role and hands-on practice. The proposed step-by-step approach builds up from introductory to more advanced concepts, ensuring flexibility and simultaneously encompassing the needs of all industrial stakeholders (engineers, designers, managers, operators). Additionally, strategies corroborating the accessibility of the proposed framework are discussed, as well as dissemination policies and tools to facilitate its industrial endorsement

Addressing the challenges for the industrial application of additive manufacturing: Towards a hybrid solution

The interest of different industrial sectors for Additive Manufacturing (AM) is rapidly increasing, mainly due to the fact that complex parts can be manufactured without an increase in cost. However, there are limitations in AM in terms of speed, working volumes, and the need for post processing of the manufactured parts, which puts a barrier for the industrial application of AM. A most promising way for the industrialization of AM solutions, is their merging with Subtractive Manufacturing (SM) processes, taking into account industrial practices and needs. In this study, the roadmap for the industrial application of AM is paved by addressing the challenges hindering it, through a Hybrid AM solution framework, which is tailored to the needs of industries. A Hybrid AM cell-based solution is proposed and the development of a hybrid AM production line is also discussed, along with the aspects that have to be taken into consideration for the enhancement of the quality, flexibility and productivity towards the automated production of net parts of high complexity and low cost. Keywords: Additive manufacturing, Hybrid additive manufacturing, Industrialization, Production lin

Skills Requirements for the 4

This work analyses the required expertise knowledge for the European workforce under the implementation spectrum of the technologies from Industry4.0. The advancement of the conventional manufacturing technologies with complementary monitoring and control systems combined with the rapid growth of unconventional manufacturing technologies, calls for the equivalent advancement in the workforce’s expertise. The Industry’s 4.0 skills are mapped and categorized based on the knowledge requirements derived from the major technologies involved. The competences’ categorization is what further determines the Professional Profiles and skills requirements for the Industry4.0. As Additive Manufacturing is one of the most significant manufacturing technologies implemented from Industry4.0 a case study for the required AM skills is performed. The outcome of this work indicates that the AM Professional Profile is a multi-dimensional quantity with multiple competence units that require validation and further evaluation in order to meet the skills requirements imposed by the industry

Skills Requirements for the 4th Industrial Revolution: The Additive Manufacturing case

This work analyses the required expertise knowledge for the European workforce under the implementation spectrum of the technologies from Industry4.0. The advancement of the conventional manufacturing technologies with complementary monitoring and control systems combined with the rapid growth of unconventional manufacturing technologies, calls for the equivalent advancement in the workforce’s expertise. The Industry’s 4.0 skills are mapped and categorized based on the knowledge requirements derived from the major technologies involved. The competences’ categorization is what further determines the Professional Profiles and skills requirements for the Industry4.0. As Additive Manufacturing is one of the most significant manufacturing technologies implemented from Industry4.0 a case study for the required AM skills is performed. The outcome of this work indicates that the AM Professional Profile is a multi-dimensional quantity with multiple competence units that require validation and further evaluation in order to meet the skills requirements imposed by the industry

Optimization of Milling Processes: Chatter Detection via a Sensor-Integrated Vice

The future of the milling process is the fully autonomous operation of the machine tools. Developments in terms of automation and machine tool design are now enabling fully autonomous operation. However, the optimization and stability of the process itself still remains a challenge. Chatter is the most significant bottleneck, and as such, it should be constantly monitored to ensure a stable process. This work proposes a sensor-integrated milling vice using an MEMS accelerometer as a non-invasive monitoring solution for chatter detection. The system is comprised by low-cost, industrial-grade components suitable for implementation in real production scenarios. The dynamic analysis of the sensor-integrated vice enables the definition of the sensor-integration point to ensure measurement quality. The use of advanced signal process algorithms for the demodulation of the vibration signal, along with the use of artificial intelligence for chatter detection, led to a high-performance system at a low cost. A wide set of milling experiments that has been conducted showcased that the proposed solution enables continuous, real-time process optimization in milling through in-process chatter detection

Complementarity of European RIS Territories Towards Manufacturing Educational Products

International audienceEurope is in a position where the complementarity of the workforce in terms of competences and skills is able to produce a high added value for industry. The need for technologies absorption, digitalization and innovation increase dictate a change in the training products, so that every single country is benefited and utilized, simultaneously. Thus, collaborative educational and training programs can be standardized. This is a roadmap towards such a holistic design, taking advantage of the functionalities of RIS hubs that have been established in EU RIS countries. A framework of five phases is presented involving RIS hubs as well as the complementary skills of the stakeholders

A Teaching Factory knowledge exchange network

Skills and competences required by the labor market evolve at a high rate. In addition, manufacturing enterprises face a number of technical and non-technical challenges in their daily business, and most of them are relatively slow as it regards innovation adoption. Academia needs to be able to closely follow industrial needs, to generate the right kind of professionals. In addition, academia owns a lot of high-value specialized industrial equipment, which is not shared and subsequently often underutilized. Over and above, COVID-19 has significantly impacted the educational institutes' operation. All aforementioned facts point to one specific need; an effective remote collaboration paradigm aiming at knowledge exchange. The Teaching Factory paradigm provides a real-life environment for students to develop their skills and competences, through directly involving them with real-life industrial challenges. Through the use of modern digital technologies and tools, and in combination with the relevant educational approach, a two-way online knowledge communication between academia and industry is formed, aiming to mutually benefit both stakeholders. This work focuses on presenting a framework for successfully extending the established Teaching Factory paradigm on a network level, taking advantage of the unique characteristics of all aforementioned actors and connecting them together to the ecosystem benefit, forming a Teaching Factory Knowledge Exchange Network. The educational approach and required ICT infrastructure for the facilitation of knowledge exchange are presented. The proposed framework and tools applicability are validated in two heterogeneous pilot applications, using different modalities of the proposed framework, involving a collaborative academic teaching scheme via virtually interconnected classrooms and labs, as well as a collaboratively solving an industrial challenge linked with digital work instructions in manual assembly.Peer reviewe