Cellular Structures for Electric Vehicle Battery Systems: A Critical Review and Design Guidelines
Alessandra Ceci1, Girolamo Costanza1, Maria Elisa Tata1
1Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Rome "Tor Vergata", Via del Politecnico 1, 00133 Rome, Italy.
Materials (Basel, Switzerland)
|July 28, 2026
Summary
Cellular materials offer lightweight, crashworthy solutions for electric vehicle (EV) battery systems. This review provides a unified framework to compare architectures, aiding EV battery pack design and integration.
Area of Science:
- Materials Science
- Mechanical Engineering
- Automotive Engineering
Background:
- Architected cellular materials are explored for electric vehicle (EV) battery systems.
- These materials offer lightweight solutions with crashworthiness and thermal management potential.
- Existing literature is fragmented, hindering design comparison and pack-level implementation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To consolidate the state-of-the-art on cellular structures for EV battery applications.
- To introduce a unified, design-oriented comparative framework for evaluating these materials.
- To provide actionable engineering insights and guidelines for selecting cellular architectures.
Main Methods:
- Comprehensive review of literature on cellular structures (foams, honeycombs, lattices, TPMS, auxetic, bio-inspired).
- Development of a comparative framework assessing mechanical performance, thermal aspects, and manufacturing scalability.
- Analysis linking architecture selection to EV battery pack safety and integration requirements.
Main Results:
- Consolidated overview of diverse cellular architectures for EV battery applications.
- A unified framework for comparing mechanical (energy absorption, crushing force) and thermal performance.
- Identification of manufacturing and integration challenges for pack-level implementation.
Conclusions:
- Cellular materials show promise for enhancing EV battery system safety and performance.
- A design-oriented framework is crucial for informed architecture selection.
- Further research is needed in multiphysics validation, standardized benchmarking, and production integration.
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