Modeling and optimization of an enhanced battery thermal management system in electric vehicles

Abstract

This paper models and optimizes an air-based battery thermal management system (BTMS) in a battery module with 36 battery lithium-ion cells. A design of experiments is performed to study the effects of three key parameters (i.e., mass flow rate of cooling air, heat flux from the battery cell to the cooling air, and passage spacing size) on the battery thermal performance. Three metrics are used to evaluate the BTMS thermal performance, including (i) the maximum temperature in the battery module, (ii) the temperature uniformity in the battery module, and (iii) the pressure drop. It is found that (i) increasing the total mass flow rate may result in a more non-uniform distribution of the passage mass flow rate among passages, and (ii) a large passage spacing size may worsen the temperature uniformity on the battery walls. Optimization is also performed to optimize the passage spacing size. Results show that the maximum temperature difference of the cooling air in passages is reduced from 23.9 to 2.1 K by 91.2%, and the maximum temperature difference among the battery cells is reduced from 25.7 to 6.4 K by 75.1%.

Key words： thermal management; electric vehicle; lithium-ion battery; temperature uniformity; design optimization

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the University of Texas at Dallas. The author of Mao Li and Xiaobang Wang were supported by the China Scholarship Council.

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