A novel hybrid liquid-cooled battery thermal management system for electric vehicles in highway fuel-economy condition

Abstract

A hybrid liquid cooling system that contains both direct and indirect liquid cooling methods is numerically investigated to enhance the thermal efficiency of a 21700-format lithium-ion battery pack during the discharge operation. One of the most significant challenges that liquid-based direct cooling systems face is the filling of the heat capacity of the coolant during the cooling process, hindering the effective dissipation of heat generated from batteries. This paper aims to introduce a battery thermal management system to address this issue. In the present study, the influences of immersion and flow cooling methods using HFE-7100 and water (as working fluids), inflow velocities of cooling channel and tubes, parallel and counter flow, battery cell space, and highway fuel-economy test on the temperature distribution of batteries were studied comprehensively. Results highlight that immersion cooling with water outperforms due to the lower thermal conductivity of HFE-7100. In addition, Flow cooling significantly reduces the battery pack's highest temperature and non-uniformity compared to immersion. According to the numerical results, using cooling tubes as an indirect cooling system integrated with the direct flow cooling method can remarkably improve the thermal efficiency of the battery pack. Moreover, results exhibited that counterflow between cooling tubes/channels can keep the highest temperature and temperature variance of Li-ion battery package below 32.15 °C and 3.04 °C, respectively. Varying battery cell spaces shows that a 14 mm space reduces the battery package's highest temperature by 1.54 °C compared to a 10 mm space. Finally, highway fuel-economy condition is applied to the simulations of this study, illustrating the effect of an innovative hybrid battery thermal management system for a 21700-type Li-ion battery pack.