First EV battery tray programme reaches PPAP

A multi-void 6082 extrusion, friction-stir welded and helium leak tested, has passed production part approval for a Thai assembly plant.

The automotive line received PPAP approval in May for a battery enclosure tray supplied to an assembly plant in Rayong. It is the first programme to reach approval since IATF 16949 certification last year.

The part is a multi-void 6082-T6 extrusion, friction-stir welded into a frame and helium leak tested at 5 × 10⁻⁶ mbar·l/s. Wall thickness is set by the crash case rather than by what the press can comfortably draw, which meant three die iterations before the sections held tolerance across a full billet.

Traceability runs from billet lot to packed carton. Every tray carries a laser-etched code that resolves to its alloy certificate, weld parameters and leak test result, which is the part of the programme that took longest to build and the part the customer audited hardest.