International Journal of Thermofluids (Nov 2024)
Three-dimensional numerical investigation of the effect of various parameters on the cooling performance of Li-Ion battery packs with three arrangements
Abstract
The temperature of battery packs is a crucial concern for electric vehicles' performance, reliability, and lifespan. The air-cooling systems of batteries are considered more important because of their simple structure design, economic aspect, and lightweight to control the thermal behavior of battery packs. A numerical investigation of three-dimensional models based on computational fluid dynamics consisting of 32 cylindrical cells of lithium-ion battery packs in regular, staggered, and zigzag arrangements is presented to evaluate the thermal behavior of air-cooled systems for lithium battery packs subjected to various air velocities and discharge rates. The results demonstrate that the regular arrangement along the horizontal direction flow has the most effective cooling performance, and best heat dissipation. The zigzag arrangement and the staggered arrangement are ranked next, respectively. Due to the change in velocity from 2 m/s to 5 m/s, the maximum temperature of battery packs decreased by 2.05 K, 1.68 K, and 2.31 K and the energy used to provide cooling air increased by 80.32 %, 75.48 %, and 78.36 %in regular, zigzag, and staggered arrangement, respectively. Further, the maximum temperature and the efficiency factor have a reduction trend versus increasing velocities. When the discharge rate is enhanced, the heat generation rises by an external source, hence the maximum temperature increases by 301.64 K for 1C, 305.67 K for 1.5 C, and 310.84 K for 2 C in the regular arrangement as the effective case in cooling performance. This current study offers valuable recommendations for the expanded battery packs in electric vehicles with a comprehensive simulation that is almost impossible to investigate in physical experiments.
