Battery Assemblies are critical parts used in the Automotive Industry for Electric Vehicle Sub-Assemblies. To ensure these parts will perform as designed they must be leak tested to ensure internal volume integrity. Typically, the leak test of battery assemblies is performed with the use of a tracer gas Leak detector in the 6.00E -06 sensitivity range. However, there are some applications that are less or more sensitive.
Most Tier Suppliers will require a production rate of 864 parts per hour and are typically tested in a small chamber system. Key Considerations for the accurate and repeatable test of an EV battery:
Vacuum Instruments Corporation designs and builds custom tracer gas leak detection systems to test these power cells, several at a time. Each chamber is provided with its own product evacuation, charging, venting and valve scheme. A common dry vacuum pump with vacuum ballast provides the vacuum source. During the initial chamber evacuation, the system will perform a fitting-in-place check using a pressure transducer. This check is a pretest of seal integrity prior to evacuating the product and charging it with helium. After a successful vacuum decay test, the part is back-filled with helium to a specified pressure. After completion of all tests, the test part is vented to atmospheric pressure and re-evacuated to remove all residual helium before the part is unloaded.
Vacuum Instruments Corporation has been designing and manufacturing customized systems to test these parts as well as other Electric Vehicle Applications more than a decade.