Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 2

Magna Exteriors Inc. is currently developing a composite battery enclosure using glass-fiber sheet moulding compound (GF-SMC). Compared to traditional aluminium battery enclosures, the selection of GF-SMC material allows weight saving, increased structural performance, corrosion resistance and thermal insulation, shape design optimization and low-cost processing. Unfortunately, the major drawback of this new approach is the poor electromagnetic shielding effectiveness of the GF-SMC material.Through this proposed project with Centre technologique en aérospatiale's (CTA), Magna aims to develop an innovative GF-SMC battery enclosure with electromagnetic (EM) shielding properties for electrical vehicles. The main objectives of this project are to identify a low-cost EM shielding material to integrate in the enclosure and to develop a manufacturing process which can ultimately reach a production rate of less than 10 minutes per part. The project will start from the material selection, which includes testing the performance of various commercially available additives and shielding materials (EM shielding effectiveness, processability, cost, etc.), all the way to the process optimization, scaling and integration feasibility study. The performance of the newly developed material and process will be validated through the moulding and testing of a 2.5D demonstrator part.