CN219655525U - Connecting piece and high-capacity battery using same - Google Patents

Abstract

The utility model discloses a connecting piece. The connecting piece is an elongated pipe fitting, and the elongated pipe fitting comprises a middle pipe section and inserted pipe sections which are arranged at two ends of the middle pipe section and used for interference insertion; at least one groove is formed in the outer wall of the middle pipe section. The groove can spatially realize deformation to compensate the coaxiality error, so that the excessive splicing matching process is labor-saving, the yield of the high-capacity battery is improved, more importantly, the possibility of loosening a connecting piece can be reduced through deformation of the groove under the condition that the high-capacity battery is subjected to external force or the internal pressure of the high-capacity battery is increased, and the probability of leakage of an electrolyte sharing pipeline is reduced.

Description

Connecting piece and high-capacity battery using same

Technical Field

The utility model belongs to the field of batteries, and particularly relates to a connecting piece and a high-capacity battery using the same.

Background

The uniformity of each single battery in the battery module is poor due to the fact that the single batteries in the battery module are different, and the cycle life of the battery module is directly limited, so that the uniformity of each single battery in the battery module is improved, and the focus and difficulty of research in the field are achieved.

Chinese patent, publication No. CN218525645U, discloses "a battery cell case, a battery cell, and a large-capacity battery". In this patent, the large-capacity battery includes a battery cell group formed by connecting a plurality of battery cells (also called batteries or single batteries) in parallel, and an electrolyte sharing channel formed by splicing the pipelines on the respective battery cell cases. After the electrolyte sharing channel is formed by pipeline splicing, electrolyte injected through the electrolyte injection mechanism enters the cell shell, so that all cells in the cell group are in a unified electrolyte environment, and the uniformity of the cell group can be effectively improved.

The patent discloses that the electrolyte sharing channel is formed by splicing pipelines on each lower cover plate and connecting pieces between every two adjacent pipelines in an interference splicing mode.

The inventor finds that when the large-capacity battery is manufactured, in the splicing process:

on the first hand, due to the existence of part machining errors and assembly errors, the coaxiality of the pipelines on each lower cover plate and the connecting piece between every two adjacent pipelines is difficult to ensure, so that the plugging difficulty is high, and the yield of the high-capacity battery is low.

In the second aspect, the deviation of coaxiality can be increased along with the increase of the plugging quantity, so that the large-capacity battery can be loosened at the position of at least one interference fit of the electrolyte sharing channel under the condition of external force vibration after the manufacturing is completed or the situation that the electrolyte sharing channel leaks due to excessive internal pressure of the large-capacity battery after the large-capacity battery is used for a period of time.

Disclosure of Invention

In order to solve the problems that when an electrolyte sharing channel of the existing large-capacity battery is manufactured in a splicing mode, the yield of the large-capacity battery is low, and the electrolyte sharing channel can leak, the utility model provides a connecting piece.

The connecting piece is an elongated pipe fitting, and the elongated pipe fitting comprises a middle pipe section and inserted pipe sections which are arranged at two ends of the middle pipe section and used for interference insertion; at least one groove is formed in the outer wall of the middle pipe section, so that when the shared pipeline is formed in a butt joint mode, the groove can compensate coaxiality errors between pipelines on two adjacent single batteries.

When coaxiality errors exist between two pipelines which are in butt joint with the connecting piece, the grooves can be deformed in space to compensate the coaxiality errors, so that not only is the excessive splicing and matching process labor-saving, but also the yield of the high-capacity battery is improved, more importantly, the possibility of loosening the connecting piece can be reduced through deformation of the grooves under the condition that the high-capacity battery is subjected to external force or the internal pressure of the high-capacity battery is increased, and the probability of leakage of the electrolyte sharing pipeline is reduced.

Further, the cross section of the middle pipe section is rectangular. When the laser welder is used for carrying out secondary sealing fixation on the connecting piece and the pipeline after the plugging and matching, compared with the situation that the light spot of the laser welder needs to carry out welding operation according to a curve path, the light spot of the laser welder is easier to operate when carrying out welding operation according to a straight line path, and therefore the section of the middle pipe section is rectangular and more reasonable.

Further, in order to ensure the variable quantity of the connecting piece in the butt joint process, the compensation effect of coaxiality errors is improved, the grooves are multiple, the multiple grooves are distributed at intervals along the axial direction of the slender pipe fitting, and each groove is annular.

Further, in order to ensure the variable quantity of the connecting piece in the butt joint process, the compensation effect of coaxiality errors is improved, the groove is one, the groove is annular, the outer diameter of the middle area of the middle pipe section is basically consistent with the outer diameter of the inserted pipe section, and meanwhile, a circle of shallow grooves are formed in the outer wall of the middle area.

The utility model also provides a high-capacity battery, which comprises a battery pack main body formed by connecting N single batteries in parallel; n is more than or equal to 2; the improvement is that: the battery pack also comprises at least one shared pipeline which is arranged on the battery pack main body and is used for communicating the inner cavities of all the single batteries; the shared pipeline comprises N pipelines and N-1 connecting pieces; n pipelines are respectively arranged on the shells of the single batteries, and two adjacent pipelines are connected through the connecting piece.

When the N-1 connecting pieces and the N pipelines are spliced to form the large-capacity battery, when the coaxiality of the adjacent pipelines is in error, the grooves on the connecting pieces can be deformed in space to compensate the coaxiality error, so that the excessive splicing matching process is labor-saving, the yield of the large-capacity battery is improved, more importantly, the possibility of loosening the connecting pieces can be reduced through deformation of the grooves under the condition that the large-capacity battery is subjected to external force or the internal pressure of the large-capacity battery is increased, and the probability of liquid leakage of the electrolyte sharing pipeline is reduced.

Meanwhile, the high-capacity battery sharing pipeline can be communicated with the electrolyte areas in the inner cavities of all the single batteries to be used as an electrolyte sharing pipeline, can also be communicated with the gas areas in the inner cavities of all the single batteries to be used as a gas sharing pipeline, and can selectively adopt electrolyte sharing or gas sharing according to requirements to enable all the single batteries in the high-capacity battery to be in an electrolyte uniform state or a gas balance state, so that the performance and the service life of the high-capacity battery are improved.

Furthermore, in order to further increase the variable quantity of the shared pipeline in the butt joint process, the compensation effect of the coaxiality error is improved, and at least one groove can be formed in the outer wall of the pipeline.

Further, in order to improve the reliability and the tightness of the connection of the shared pipeline, the connecting piece and the two adjacent pipelines are sealed and fixed in a welding mode.

Further, in order to improve the tightness, the compensation effect of the coaxiality error is increased to a greater extent, and a flexible sealing ring is arranged between the inserted pipe section of the connecting piece and the inner wall of the pipeline.

Further, compared with the single electrolyte sharing or gas sharing, the high-capacity battery provided by the utility model has the characteristics of both electrolyte sharing and gas sharing, namely, in the high-capacity battery, each single battery is in a uniform state of sharing, and is in a balanced state of gas sharing, and under the double sharing, the uniformity of each single battery in the high-capacity battery is better, the cycle times of the high-capacity battery is further increased, and the probability of thermal runaway of the single battery is also reduced;

the high-capacity battery of the utility model provides the following two gas and liquid sharing structural forms:

1. the two sharing pipelines are arranged, one sharing pipeline is positioned above the battery pack main body and is used for communicating with each single battery gas area; the other is positioned below the battery pack main body and is used for being communicated with the electrolyte areas of the single batteries.

2. The sharing pipeline is one and is arranged on one side of the battery pack main body and is used for being communicated with the gas area and the electrolyte area of each single battery.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a connecting member in embodiment 1;

FIG. 2 is a second schematic view of the connector of the embodiment 1;

FIG. 3 is a third schematic view of the connector of example 1;

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of a connector according to embodiment 1;

FIG. 5 is a fifth schematic view of the connector of embodiment 1;

FIG. 6 is a schematic view showing a third connector assembled with a U-shaped tool;

FIG. 7 is a schematic view showing a fourth connector assembled with a U-shaped tool;

fig. 8 is a schematic structural view of a large-capacity battery in embodiment 2;

fig. 9 is a schematic structural view of upper and lower cover plates of a single battery;

fig. 10 is a schematic view of the structure of a large-capacity battery in embodiment 3;

fig. 11 is a schematic structural view of a large-capacity battery in embodiment 4;

fig. 12 is a schematic structural diagram of a large-capacity battery in example 5.

The reference numerals are as follows:

1-connecting piece, 2-middle pipe section, 3-grafting pipe section, 4-recess, 41-shallow slot, 5-chamfer, 6-battery cell, 61-lower apron, 62-upper apron, 63-lateral wall, 7-group battery main part, 8-sharing pipeline, 9-pipeline, 10-U font frock.

Detailed Description

The technical solutions of the embodiments will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the accompanying drawings, and it is obvious that the described embodiments are only some embodiments, not all embodiments. All other embodiments, which can be made by one of ordinary skill in the art without undue burden, are within the scope of the present utility model based on the following examples.

Meanwhile, it should be noted that the positional or positional relationship indicated by the terms such as "upper, lower, inner and outer" and the like herein are based on the positional or positional relationship shown in the drawings, and are merely for convenience of description, and are not intended to indicate or imply that the apparatus or element to be referred to must have a specific orientation, be constructed and operated in a specific orientation, and thus should not be construed as limiting the technical scheme. Furthermore, the terms "first, second, or third" are used for descriptive purposes only and are not to be construed as indicating or implying relative importance.

The terms "mounted, connected, and coupled" should be construed broadly in this disclosure unless otherwise specifically indicated and defined, such as: can be fixedly connected, detachably connected or integrally connected: it may also be a mechanical connection, an electrical connection, or a direct connection, or may be indirectly connected through an intermediate medium, or may be a communication between two elements. The specific meaning of the above terms in the present utility model will be understood in specific cases by those of ordinary skill in the art.

The method aims at solving the problems that the manufacturing difficulty of a spliced electrolyte sharing channel in the existing large-capacity battery is high, the yield is low, and the leakage probability of the electrolyte sharing channel is high. The utility model provides a connecting piece and a high-capacity battery using the same.

Example 1

As shown in fig. 1, in this embodiment, the connector 1 is an elongated pipe made of aluminum, and the elongated pipe includes a middle pipe section 2 and plug pipe sections 3 disposed at two ends of the middle pipe section 2 for interference plug, where, for convenience in positioning and installation, the outer diameter of the middle pipe section 2 is larger than the plug pipe sections 3; at least one groove 4 is arranged on the outer wall of the middle pipe section 2, so that when a shared pipeline is formed in a butt joint mode, the groove can compensate coaxiality errors between pipelines on two adjacent single batteries.

In this embodiment, in order to make the connection between the connection element 1 and the pipeline more reliable, the tightness is better, and the connection element and the pipeline need to be connected in an interference manner and then are fixed in a secondary sealing manner by welding again.

In this embodiment, as shown in fig. 1, the cross section of the middle pipe section 2 is rectangular, and the cross section of the plugging pipe section 3 is circular; in some other embodiments, as shown in fig. 2, the middle pipe section 2 and the plug pipe section 3 may be processed into a circular shape; the purpose of this design is: the welding is convenient; because the light spot of the laser welding machine generally performs welding operation according to a straight path, the cross section of the middle pipe section is rectangular, and compared with the design of the middle pipe section into a round shape, the rectangular middle pipe section is more beneficial to the operation of the laser welding machine.

The number and the arrangement mode of the grooves 4 are quite various, and the grooves can only provide deformation for the connecting piece to meet the compensation coaxiality error:

in the first connecting piece, the number of grooves 4 is at least one, and each groove 4 is arranged on the pipe wall of the middle pipe section 2 along the axial direction of the middle pipe section 2;

in the second connecting piece, as shown in fig. 3, the groove 4 is one channel, and the groove 4 is spirally arranged on the pipe wall of the middle pipe section 2;

in the third connecting piece, as shown in fig. 4 and 5, the number of the grooves 4 is one, the axial dimension of the grooves 4 is larger, the grooves 4 are annular, the outer diameter of the middle area a of the middle pipe section 2 is basically consistent with the outer diameter of the inserted pipe section 3 by the grooves 4, and meanwhile, a circle of shallow grooves 41 are formed in the outer wall of the middle area a.

In the fourth connecting member, as shown in fig. 1 and 2, the number of grooves 4 is multiple, the multiple grooves 4 are distributed at intervals along the axial direction of the middle pipe section 2, and each groove 4 is an annular groove formed on the middle pipe section 2.

Of the four connectors, the first type provides a smaller amount of deformation than the second, third and fourth types; the second form, while providing a greater amount of deformation, may be subject to a direction of the deformation of the connector being spiral, and may be limited in the direction of spatial deformation as compared to the third and fourth forms, with relatively poor coaxiality error compensation. Thus, the third and fourth connector forms are employed in this embodiment.

In this embodiment, a chamfer 5 may be further disposed at the end port of the plug pipe section 3 far away from the middle pipe section 2, so that the plug fit is smoother and more labor-saving.

Referring to fig. 6 and 7, in the process of plugging the third and fourth connectors 1 to form a shared pipeline, a U-shaped tool 10 is required to be plugged on the connectors 1 and matched with the grooves 4, so as to prevent the connectors 1 from being deformed in an extrusion manner in the axial direction (i.e. along the extrusion direction) and even from being broken due to overlarge external force in the plugging process. After the connection piece is inserted, the U-shaped tool 10 is detached from the connection piece.

Example 2

As shown in fig. 8, the large-capacity battery of the present embodiment includes a battery pack main body 7 formed by connecting 9 single cells 6 in parallel; n is more than or equal to 2; a sharing pipeline 8 is arranged below the battery pack main body 7, and the sharing pipeline 8 is communicated with electrolyte areas in the inner cavities of the single batteries 6, so that electrolyte sharing of the high-capacity batteries is realized; the shared pipe 8 comprises 9 pipes 9 and 8 connectors 1 according to example 1; the 9 pipelines 9 are respectively arranged on the lower cover plate 61 of each single battery 6, and two adjacent pipelines 9 are connected through the connecting piece 1. Preferably, the pipeline 9 and the lower cover plate 61 can be manufactured in an integrated mode; it should be emphasized that the strength of the grooved connecting piece 1 needs to be smaller than the strength of the pipeline 9 to ensure that the pipeline 9 does not deform when the connecting piece compensates for the coaxiality error by deformation.

In addition to the connector of embodiment 1, the high-capacity battery provided in this embodiment is optimally designed to improve the workability and sealing reliability of the electrolyte sharing pipe;

1. as shown in fig. 9, in order to further raise the deformation amount to supplement the coaxiality error, the outer wall of the pipeline 9 is also provided with a groove 4, and the opening form of the groove 4 is consistent with that of the groove on the third connecting piece in embodiment 1. The conduit 9 is also rectangular in cross section for ease of welding.

2. The connecting piece 1 and two adjacent pipelines 9 are sealed and fixed secondarily in a welding mode.

3. The area of pegging graft between grafting pipeline section 3 and the pipeline 9 inner wall of connecting piece 1 is provided with a flexible sealing washer, and this flexible sealing washer not only can strengthen the leakproofness between connecting piece and the pipeline, also can have axiality error compensation effect to a certain extent when pegging graft the cooperation through the flexible deformation of sealing washer simultaneously.

Example 3

Referring to fig. 10, the present embodiment is different from embodiment 2 in that a sharing pipe 8 is installed above a battery pack main body 7, and the sharing pipe 8 communicates with gas areas of inner cavities of respective unit cells, thereby achieving gas sharing of a large-capacity battery. That is, the pipeline 9 in the shared pipeline 8 is arranged on the upper cover plate 62 of the single battery, and the pipeline 8 and the upper cover plate 62 are preferably manufactured in an integrated mode.

Example 4

Referring to fig. 11, the difference between this embodiment and embodiments 2 and 3 is that two sharing pipes 8 are respectively installed above the battery pack main body 7 and below the battery pack main body 7, and the upper sharing pipe is connected to the gas area in the inner cavity of each unit cell 6, so as to realize gas sharing of the large-capacity battery, and the lower sharing pipe is connected to the electrolyte area in the inner cavity of each unit cell 6, so as to realize electrolyte sharing of the large-capacity battery. That is, the large-capacity battery can have both functions of electrolyte sharing and gas sharing. The design aims to enable the inside of the large-capacity battery to form a shared electrolyte system and a gas balance system, so that double balance of electrolyte and gas pressure among all single batteries is realized, and compared with single electrolyte sharing or gas sharing, the cycle service life of the large-capacity battery is further prolonged.

Example 5

Referring to fig. 12, in this embodiment, similarly to embodiment 4, the large-capacity battery is provided with both functions of electrolyte sharing and gas sharing; the difference is that only one shared pipe 8 is installed on the side wall of the battery pack body 7, and the shared pipe is simultaneously communicated with each cell gas zone and electrolyte zone. That is, the piping 9 in the shared piping 8 is provided on the side wall 63 of the unit cell 6. The purpose of this design is that the structure of the high capacity battery is simpler and more compact than two shared pipes.

Claims (10)

1. A connector, characterized in that: the device comprises an elongated pipe fitting, wherein the elongated pipe fitting comprises a middle pipe section and splicing pipe sections which are arranged at two ends of the middle pipe section and used for interference splicing; at least one groove is formed in the outer wall of the middle pipe section, so that when the shared pipeline is formed in a butt joint mode, the groove can compensate coaxiality errors between pipelines on two adjacent single batteries.

2. A connector as defined in claim 1, wherein: the section of the middle pipe section is rectangular.

3. A connector as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2, wherein: the grooves are multiple channels, the multiple channels of grooves are distributed at intervals along the axial direction of the slender pipe fitting, and each channel of groove is annular.

4. A connector as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2, wherein: the groove is one, and the groove is annular, so that the outer diameter of the middle area of the middle pipe section is basically consistent with the outer diameter of the inserted pipe section, and a circle of shallow grooves are formed in the outer wall of the middle area.

5. A high-capacity battery comprises a battery pack main body formed by connecting N single batteries in parallel; n is more than or equal to 2; the method is characterized in that: the battery pack also comprises at least one shared pipeline which is arranged on the battery pack main body and is used for communicating the inner cavities of all the single batteries; the shared pipeline comprises N pipelines and N-1 connectors as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 4; n pipelines are respectively arranged on the shells of the single batteries, and two adjacent pipelines are connected through the connecting piece.

6. The high-capacity battery as claimed in claim 5, wherein: at least one groove is formed in the outer wall of the pipeline.

7. The high-capacity battery as claimed in claim 5, wherein: the connecting piece and two adjacent pipelines are sealed and fixed in a welding mode.

8. The high-capacity battery as claimed in claim 5, wherein: a flexible sealing ring is arranged between the plug-in pipe section of the connecting piece and the inner wall of the pipeline.

9. The high-capacity battery as claimed in claim 5, wherein: the two sharing pipelines are arranged, one sharing pipeline is positioned above the battery pack main body and is used for communicating with each single battery gas area; the other is positioned below the battery pack main body and is used for being communicated with the electrolyte areas of the single batteries.

10. The high-capacity battery as claimed in claim 5, wherein: the sharing pipeline is one and is arranged on one side of the battery pack main body and is used for being communicated with the gas area and the electrolyte area of each single battery.