Computational investigation for reduction in auxiliary energy consumption with different cell spacing in battery pack

Abstract

The need for battery storage systems is expected to grow quickly in the coming decade for a variety of applications, including electric vehicles, stationary storage and off-grid applications. Internal heat production in the lithium-ion battery chemistry is substantial in high-power applications, which is adverse to battery efficiency, long-term performance, and battery safety. Maintaining the battery temperature in the range of 15–45 °C is required for improved performance and safety of lithium-ion battery modules. The cooling methods consist of active and passive cooling, in which active cooling needs of additional power such as liquid cooling, forced air cooling, whereas in passive cooling, there is no need of additional power and employs phase change material cooling, and heat pipe, which require no additional power in the design of Battery thermal management systems. We focused on a designing of a forced-air cooling system for a battery module in this research. A Numerical model of a battery module has been developed in ANSYS Fluent software consist of ECM battery model and validated using the data of the previous study. The novelty of this work is that the subgrouping of the cells in the pack creates turbulence in the flow of heat extracting air. Ability of inlet air to extract heat at an end rows is increased and due to this, the end rows in the pack cool effectively. The modified design shows the improved cooling performance by 21.2 %. The reduced temperature rise in battery pack is achieved without using extra auxiliary power and extra volume. Modified design gives reduction in power consumption by 12.7 %.