Computational science and artificial intelligence (AI) company Altair, together with JLR and specialist battery engineering company Danecca, has been awarded funding from the UK government through the Faraday Battery Challenge.
The three companies have developed a consortium to support a research project to develop a new design process for electric vehicles. The project funding comes from UK Research and Innovation, a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) to support the development of battery technology in the UK.
The new process will leverage Altair technology to develop vehicle prototypes. The new vehicle models will have a new, lighter body that offers more room for the battery without adding additional weight.
JLR will also apply Altair’s C123 process, a three-stage concept development process for body-in-white structures. JLR will also perform optimization with Altair OptiStruct—an FEA solver in the Altair→ HyperWorks→ design and simulation platform —utilizing the solution’s newly developed electrothermal features.
The project runs from 1 February 2023, to 31 Jan 2025, and will continuously explore how to make improvements through simulation after the components for the prototype vehicles have been ordered. All research results will stay with JLR, Danecca, and Altair after the funded project period and can be used for other customers or projects.