A numerical study on thermal control of batteries by phase change materials with liquid cooling

Abstract

The thermal control of the battery system concerns about reduction in heat generation during the operation of battery and the limitations of the vehicles due to the external climatic factors. This study focuses on the attempt to control the battery from external climatic factors and temperature peaks during its operation by the principle of passive thermal management system using phase-change material. A numerical investigation of a three-dimensional model for a cylindrical lithium-polymer battery as a single module is done. The thermal control is realized by a phase-change material for a battery placed inside a parallelopiped and cooled by convective tubes placed at constant temperature and the surface of the module is considered as adiabatic. The governing equations are solved using the Finite Volume method using Ansys-Fluent. The investigation involves 3 different C-rates for two different phase change materials. The results analyse the maximum temperature, temperature distribution and liquid fraction fields for the different cases. The obtained results indicated that for the two different PCM materials namely RT25HC and RT35HC used for the cooling of the batteries the maximum temperature reached by battery and the average temperature of the PCM materials used was observed to be higher in RT35HC.