Analysis of thermal management in prismatic and cylindrical lithium-ion batteries with mass flow rate and geometry of cooling plate channel variation for cooling system based on computational fluid dynamics

Abstract

There is a global need for lithium-ion battery (LIB) with high specific power density and energy density; however, LIB is very sensitive to temperature. To guarantee the safety and performance of LIB, mini channel liquid-cooled plate was applied as a part of battery thermal management system. In this research, the effect of water mass flow rate and the geometry of liquid-cooled plate channel were investigated. The variation of geometry is affected by the width of the channel on the prismatic battery and the number of channels on the cylindrical battery. The results show that the battery temperature decreases with increasing the inlet mass flow rate, the number and width of cooling channels. Controlling the inlet mass flow rate and cooling channels is not necessary in case certain critical values are avoided. Thus, applying 10–3 kg/s–1 of mass flow rate in 8 mm channel width effectively decreased the prismatic battery temperature from 45 °C to 30 °C. Moreover, the use of wider channel decreases the pressure drop inside the channel. It can be concluded that by using eight cooling channels with 0.001 kg/s–1 inlet mass flow rate, the maximum temperature can be controlled up to 12.06 °C for a cylindrical battery. This study helps increasing energy efficiency, which further promotes the circular economy program.

Keywords

• battery thermal management system
• circular economic program
• electric vehicles
• energy efficiency
• green energy vehicles
• mini channel cold plate.