5 Things To Know About Laser Battery Busbar Welding

Producing safe battery modules is a critical step in EV manufacturing process. Properly joining cells to busbars ensures that the connections meet electrical requirements, which are crucially important to the function, performance and reliability of the vehicle. And most importantly, the safety of the passengers.

Battery modules are made by joining together a number of battery cells (prismatic, cylindrical or pouch) and welding them together using high-conductivity busbars. For high-quality production of these components, this process can be time consuming, costly and inconsistent, all of which can contribute to less than desirable results. Adjustable Mode Beam fiber laser welding solutions and real-time weld measurement provide exceptional depth control and spatter-free welding, which are key requirements to ensure the quality of the modules and avoid defects that could prove catastrophic.

There are many overall manufacturing challenges of battery module production, but specifically when talking about busbar welding:

Challenge: The size of the weld has a direct effect on electrical resistance

Solution: Laser welding provides precision and consistency to control welds per manufacturing specifications, allowing for a uniform weld size.

Challenge: Material selections are likely to involve different metals for the busbar and cell tabs

Solution: E-mobility application experts collaborate with manufacturers to develop process parameters for welding dissimilar materials with optimum results.

Challenge: Weld placement precision and weld depth penetration is critical

Solution: For cylindrical cells, laser welding solutions integrate real-time weld measurement to control weld depth and other key welding parameters.