Examination of smart battery thermal management system using the counter flow of air and nanofluid for cooling cylindrical rechargeable batteries for better resilience

Abstract

This paper examines smart thermal management of a battery pack (BTK) with a square arrangement of 16 cylindrical battery cells numerically. The cooling of the battery is carried out simultaneously using laminar airflow in a channel and laminar nanofluids (NFs) flow in the tube inserted between the battery cells. The BTK includes rechargeable lithium-ion cells and a tube placed in the channel. The inlets of air and NFs are counter-flow, and the study is done at constant air velocity for different NFs velocities in the tube from 0.001 to 0.003m/s and different volume percentages (VOP) of NFs from 1% to 3%. The numerical study is performed transiently using the finite element method in 2000 seconds. The results demonstrate that the use of NFs and air for the thermal management (THMT) of battery cells results in better temperature uniformity on the battery cells, especially in the rows placed at the outlet. An increment iimproveP of nanoparticles improves the heat transfer coefficient (HTRC) between air and NFs flows. Also, enhancing the VOP of NFs increases the temperature of the outlet air and decreases the temperature of the outlet NFs. The average temperature (T-Av) and the maximum temperature (T-Mx) of the BTK are high until the battery is charged. They are reduced when the battery charge is stopped due to the air and NFs flows.