Due to the risk of battery fires, the growing and widespread use of electric vehicles is leading to increased requirements for the protection of battery structures. As these are often installed in the floor area of the car body, which is exposed to an increased risk of impact during driving, there is a need to functionalise protective components using a structural health monitoring (SHM) system. Sandwich structures, consisting of sensor-integrated fibre composite cover layers and foam cores, are able to holistically meet the requirements of impact protection and damage assessment combined with a high degree of lightweight construction.
To this end an underbody protection components with functional integration and a corresponding production process using wet moulding technology were developed. For this purpose, e-preforms equipped with sensors for damage assessment were integrated into the cover layers made of glass fibre reinforced composites. An automated process chain consisting of semi-finished product loading, resin application, robot handling and the pressing process was designed and prototypically implemented for the efficient production of the sandwich structures. Based on systematic and extensive parameter studies component quality and throughput times were optimised. Impact tests were carried out using a pendulum test bench and the functionality of the impact detection was validated using the structure-integrated sensors.