A comparative study of cooling schemes for laminated lithium-ion batteries. (5th January 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Wang, Shixue; Ji, Shan; Zhu, Yu
• Is Part Of: Applied thermal engineering. Volume 182(2021)
• Publication Date: 2021-01-05
• Subjects: Laminated lithium-ion battery -- Composite thermal management -- Fins -- Air cooling -- Phase change material cooling; Heat engineering -- Periodicals; Heating -- Equipment and supplies -- Periodicals; Periodicals; 621.40205
• DOI: 10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2020.116040
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1359-4311

Abstract

Highlights: Five thermal management methods for laminated lithium-ion battery packs were studied. At low discharge rates, natural convection with copper fins sandwiched between adjacent cells meets the cooling requirements. At high discharge rates, forced convection is necessary to keep the battery pack temperature in the optimal range. Aluminum fins provide a similar cooling effect with a more than 40% battery pack weight reduction compared to copper fins. Natural convection with fins and PCM is promising due to the temperature uniformity improvement among the cells. Abstract: The thermal characteristics of batteries in electric vehicles are important for the vehicle performance and safety. In this work, various battery thermal management methods for laminated lithium-ion batteries are evaluated by experiments and numerical simulations. First, a simulation scheme is proposed and verified by the results of the experiments conducted in this study. Then, five thermal management methods, including air natural convection, natural or forced convection with fins sandwiched between battery cells, forced convection with slotted fins, and natural convection with fins and phase change material (PCM) are numerically investigated. The results show that 3- mm thick copper fins greatly improve the cooling effect. At low discharge rates, natural convection with fins meets the cooling requirements. At high discharge rates, forced convection with fins or natural convection with fins and PCM is necessary to meet the cooling requirements. By replacing the copper fins with aluminum fins, the fin thickness should be increased by 1 mm to meet the cooling requirements, while the battery pack total weight is decreased by 41%, indicating that aluminum has potential in battery thermal management systems in electric vehicles.