Study of the thermal behavior of a battery pack with a serpentine channel

Abstract

To effectively enhance the thermal security of the Li-ion battery packs used in the electric vehicle industry, novel cooling systems equipped with serpentine channels are established. Then, the heat generation model is established and verified experimentally. In this research study, the structure of the cooling channel, the coolant velocity, the coolant temperature, and the coolant flow direction are considered to be the influencing factors. The results demonstrate that, by adopting the serpentine cooling channel, a better thermal conductivity can be obtained, and the type-B cooling system possesses a more reasonable structure. For different types of liquid cooling systems, the coolant temperature has a small influence on the temperature nephogram; however, for the same type of system, the coolant temperature strongly influences the temperature distribution. Similarly, the temperature difference is only related to the type of cooling system, with ∼6.09 and 5.53 K obtained for the type-A and type-B cooling systems, respectively. Furthermore, allowing the coolant in the serpentine cooling channels to flow in opposite directions can lower the value of the maximum temperature and temperature difference.