CVE LAUNCH A NEW WELDING MACHINE FOR ELECTRIC VEHICLE COMPONENTS
CVE have launched a new electron beam (EB) welding machine for electric vehicle (EV) components, including batteries, shunt resistors, motor stators, hairpins, and invertors.

The machine will address the automotive industry‘s requirement for a high-quality, quick, and reliable welding process for EV components.

ELECTRIFICATION
Vehicle electrification is the process of powering the vehicle with electricity by replacing components that operate on a conventional energy source with components that operate on electricity. This includes battery packs, motors, auxiliary systems, and charging systems.

Improvements are developing rapidly, with manufacturers already making advances in fast charging technology and battery exchange systems.

The size and mass of a battery pack often impact the design as more battery cells mean more mass for the vehicle. Increased mass requires more energy for the vehicle movement and affects manoeuvrability, such as handling, acceleration, and braking.

Widespread electrification of light and heavy-duty vehicles faces many economic and technological challenges. Many manufacturers sell electric cars, but there are still some barriers to adoption, including charging infrastructure and price. This is mainly due to the battery costs, but innovative welding solutions can help reduce these.

Electron beam welding is an optimal joining method for welding EV components.

EVFLOW: MAKING STRONGER EV CONNECTIONS
Evflow is an electron beam welding machine for producing electric vehicle (EV) power train components. Electron beam welding is an extremely consistent process, creating strong, high-quality welds.

It is significantly faster for this application as the beam from the electron gun can be deflected electromagnetically with no moving parts, allowing it to move at speeds many times faster than a mechanical laser mirror.

It is significantly faster for this application as the beam from the electron gun can be deflected electromagnetically with no moving parts, allowing it to move at speeds many times faster than a mechanical laser mirror.

You can also change the focal point of the electron beam dynamically and very rapidly using electromagnetic focusing coils, which again have no moving parts. This allows the electron beam to process very wide areas without mechanically moving the welded part or the weld head.

The focal depth of the electron beam is typically longer than a laser; this combined with the lack of issues with reflectivity, makes electron beam welding a more reliable technology for mass production as it has wider tolerance for part misalignment.

Furthermore, as there is no reflectivity from an electron beam on metals such as copper (unlike laser), there is a greater heat intensity. As a result, less material is required in critical areas, such as hairpins, to absorb the heat.

As the vacuum chamber contains the welding process, there is less spatter, so the welds are extremely consistent.

The vacuum reduces the porosity in the weld creating a better electrical connection and increasing the efficiency of the electric vehicle.

FURTHER INFORMATION
We build machines to order, and options include custom and precision work handling, vacuum systems tailored to specific process needs and productivity, wire-feed, automatic joint finding, backscattered electron imaging, automatic focus, alignment and stigmator adjustment, high-speed data capture, beam probes and QA reporting. At the heart of the system is CVE’s fully integrated HMI – find out more about our advanced features and options.

If you are not sure which system is right for your application, please get in touch! Our machines are built and manufactured at our Cambridge Headquarters. With 60 years of process know-how in providing turn-key solutions, we can find the right solution for your application.

FIRST ELECTRON BEAM WELDING OF WIND TURBINE MONOPILE ACHIEVES DRAMATIC RESULTS
A collaboration between Cambridge Vacuum Engineering (CVE), SSE Renewables, Sif Group, and TWI, has resulted in the first-ever electron beam welded section to be incorporated in an offshore wind turbine monopile foundation (transition piece). The resulting monopile is set for installation in the second phase of Dogger Bank Wind Farm, which is located more than 130km off the Northeast coast of England.

Monopiles are currently fabricated using conventional techniques such as submerged arc welding (SAW), but the consortium has demonstrated that electron beam (EB) welding is significantly quicker, cheaper, cleaner, more energy efficient and produces high quality welds with excellent fatigue properties.

INNOVATIVE EBFLOW TECHNIQUE IS 25 X FASTER AND USES 90% LESS ENERGY
The type of electron beam welding technology used – called EbflowTM – is an innovative development within the electron beam welding industry. Instead of welding inside a costly and size-limiting vacuum chamber, Ebflow uses a local vacuum system that creates and maintains a vacuum around only the seam that is being welded. This technique unleashes the potential to use EB welding on large structures, such as the biggest monopiles, while reducing costs and enhancing productivity. The technology – developed by CVE – has been shown to weld monopiles at least 25 times faster than current methods, whilst using 90% less energy, costing 88% less, and producing 97% less CO2 emissions than SAW methods.

The project required installation of an Ebflow system at Sif’s Maasvlakte 2 facility in Rotterdam to perform several longitudinal welds on 2750 mm length seams on 8m diameter rolled cans with a wall thickness of between 67-85mm. Qualification of the welding machine, weld procedures and operators were witnessed by third party inspectors and the regulatory body, DNV, which subsequently issued a technology qualification for EB welding and non-destructive testing (NDT) of the longitudinal seams produced with the process. The comprehensive performance testing programme proved that Ebflow produces welds with fatigue strength that is at least as good, if not better, than observed in equivalent arc welded joints.

The resulting can was incorporated into a monopile transition piece in January 2023 and is scheduled to be installed offshore as part of a foundation in Dogger Bank Wind Farm in late 2023.

 
FIRST-IN-CLASS PROJECT
Olly Cass, SSE Renewables Project Director for Dogger Bank Wind Farm said: 

“This is a ‘first-in-class’ project, establishing this UK innovation as a world-leading technology. With monopile type foundations accounting for over 90% of foundations used in UK projects, Ebflow RPEB could realise significant cost savings on future projects.

“These substantial savings will not only benefit the UK offshore engineering industry but could be passed on to UK energy consumers.

“We’re proud to be pioneering this innovative technique on Dogger Bank Wind Farm by demonstrating its capabilities on a critical offshore component and this would not have been possible without the great collaborative work with Cambridge Vacuum Engineering (CVE), Sif Group, and TWI. We’re excited about what could be achieved by scaling up this method to pick up the pace as we work towards net zero targets.”

Dogger Bank Wind Farm is a joint venture between SSE Renewables, Equinor and Vårgrønn. The farm is being built in three 1.2GW phases and is expected to start generating power this summer.