Constellium said it would head a consortium of automotive manufacturers and suppliers to develop structural aluminium battery enclosures for electric vehicles.

The GBP15m ALIVE (Aluminium Intensive Vehicle Enclosures) project would be developed in the UK and funded in part by a grant from the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) as a component of its low carbon emissions research programme.

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"Constellium is delighted to partner with the APC, as well as automakers and suppliers in the UK to design, engineer and prototype a completely new structural aluminium battery enclosure," said Paul Warton, president of Constellium's Automotive Structures & Industry business unit.

"Taking advantage of [our] high-strength HSA6 extrusion alloys and new manufacturing concepts, we expect these battery enclosures to provide automakers with unparalleled design freedom and modularity to optimise costs as they transition to vehicle electrification."

Thanks to agile production cells, the new enclosure manufacturing system will be designed to adapt to changing production volume, providing scalability as volume increases.

As the claimed "leading provider of both aluminium rolled and extruded solutions for the global automotive market", Constellium said it was able to design and produce battery enclosures which "provide the strength, crash resistance and weight savings needed in a structural component".

It claims its HSA6 alloys are 20% lighter than conventional alloys and are closed loop recyclable.

Constellium will design and produce the aluminium extrusions for the project at its University Technology Center (UTC) at Brunel University London.

The UTC opened in 2016 as a dedicated centre for developing and testing aluminium extrusions and prototype components at scale.

A new application centre will be developed in the UK to provide full scale prototypes to automakers, and to refine production methods for advanced manufacturing.

The ALIVE project is scheduled to start in July and to deliver its first prototypes at the end of 2021.