Effect of inlet and outlet positions on heat dissipation performance of lithium-ion battery cold plates: An analysis based on topology optimization

Abstract

This study applied topology optimization methods to design a cold plate with topology channels for a square battery. With maximum heat transfer as the optimization objectives of the cold plate channel, and the performance of the cold plate at different inlet and outlet positions was systematically analyzed, effectively harnessing the potential of topology optimization. Based on the results of the topology analysis, a simplified three-dimensional cooling model was established and numerically investigated. The optimized design was explored considering different inlet and outlet arrangements, channel depths, and mass flow rates. The results demonstrated that a channel depth of 4 mm, an inlet temperature of 25 °C, and a mass flow rate of 12 g·s−1 was the ideal choice for a 1 C discharge cooling system. The different inlet and outlet positions had a greater impact on the performance of the cold plate at this time. The parallel diagonal structure (Case A-6) could lower the pressure drop by a maximum of 16.41% and improve the heat transfer efficiency by 6.10%, and the pumping power was only 0.003 W, which could obtain high heat transfer efficiency with low pump consumption; The straight-in and straight-out structure (Case B-6) was the most superior in maximum temperature and temperature deviation, with a maximum temperature of only 33.11 °C and a temperature deviation of 1.28 °C, which could decrease by 1.25 and 0.35 °C respectively compared with other structures, improving the upper limit of working temperature and the uniformity of temperature distribution. Finally, the optimized cold plates were experimentally validated. The experimental error was within 4%, proving the simulation analysis's accuracy.