Simulation Investigation on Thermal Characteristics of Thermal Battery Activation Process Based on COMSOL

Abstract

Current thermal simulation methods are not suitable for small-size fast-activation thermal batteries, so this paper provides an improved simulation method to calculate thermal cell temperature changes using the COMSOL platform. A two-dimensional axisymmetric model of thermal batteries has been established, considering the actual heat release situation and the mobile heat source of thermal batteries. Based on it, the temperature change and electrolyte melting of thermal batteries under high-temperature conditions (50 °C) have been simulated, in which the temperature change law, thermal characteristics, and electrolyte melting characteristics have been analyzed in depth. The results show that the additional heating flakes and insulation design above and below the stack can effectively reduce heat loss. Most of the melting heat of the electrolyte flows in from the negative side. In addition, the thermal battery activation time has been calculated to be 91.2 ms at the moment when all the thermal battery electrolyte sheets begin to melt, and the absolute error was within 10% compared with the experimental results, indicating that the simulation model has high accuracy and can effectively broaden the simulation area of thermal batteries.

Keywords

• thermal battery
• transient heat-transfer analysis
• phase transition
• activation time