A review of battery thermal management in electric vehicles.

Abstract

Electric vehicles are widely adopted as the solutions of air pollution and energy crisis. Batteries as electric vehicles power sources are very important. The most widely used batteries are lithium-ion batteries, Ni-MH batteries, fuel cells and super-capacitors. However, these batteries have different heating problems. The paper studied principle of produced heat of these four type of batteries, reviews the existing batteries; thermal management. Traditional methods as air and liquid and PCM cooling are useful. This paper also introduces other new cooling methods such as heat pipe cooling and multiple cooling methods, as well as the solution to the problem of low temperature start of the batteries in winter. This will facilitate the investigation on advancing the thermal management system to a new generation.