Experiment and simulation for pouch battery with silica cooling plates and copper mesh based air cooling thermal management system

Abstract

Battery thermal management has attracted increasing attention from scientists and engineers. An entire battery thermal management system is expensive and complex. In this regard, a battery thermal management system with air cooling is an effective solution. This paper proposes a battery thermal management system that uses double silica cooling plate coupled with copper mesh as the air cooling system. Experiments and simulations were conducted to investigate the cooling capacity of battery thermal management system coupled with copper mesh and determine the thickness of the silica cooling plate, air velocity, air inlet position, and number of fans. Results indicated that 1.5 mm-thick silica cooling plate and 3.5 m/s air velocity exhibited the optimal effect on thermal management. Furthermore, the thermal management system coupled with copper mesh exhibited an excellent battery performance. In addition, the forced convection effect of the designing equipment was evaluated. The number of fans had no significant influence on cooling ability. However, the fan at the front side of the battery presented better thermal management performance than that at the side of the battery. Moreover, the average temperature of five batteries using a 1.5 mm double silica cooling plate coupled with copper mesh was determined through simulation with 5 m/s forced convection speed during the 5C discharge process. The mean temperature was 2.87 °C higher than that of one battery condition. Hence, the battery thermal management system using double silica cooling plate coupled with copper mesh could be an effective and appropriate air cooling system for thermal management.