Experiment investigation on optimization of cylinder battery thermal management with microchannel flat tubes coupled with composite silica gel

Abstract

Lithium-ion battery modules with a high risk of combustion and explosion have attracted much attention recently, so effective battery thermal management systems (BTMS) become very vital to the battery module. In this study, a microchannel flat tubes-assisted composite silica gel (CSG-LC) has been designed to the thermal uniformity and improved thermal stability performance comprehensively. The low contact thermal resistance between microchannel flat tubes and CSG can be obtained as a prominent cooling effect, which is recognized as a feasible approach to providing effectiveness and practicability in BTMS. Besides, pure CSG modules, forced air convection assisted modules (CSG-FC) and CSG-LC have also been assembled and compared. The results revealed that CSG coupled with microchannel flat tubes could absorb the heat quickly and timely, then dissipate it via the water flowing in the flat tubes efficiently. In the CSG-LC module, the maximum temperature (TMax) and maximum temperature difference (∆TMax) could be controlled below 44.5 and 4.5 °C at 3C discharge rate, respectively. In addition, the energy consumption of the CSG-LC was obviously lower than the CSG-FC, while the CSG-LC module could still maintain much better comprehensive performance. With these excellent performances, the BTMS performed here with desirably assembling method and thermal uniformity would provide insights into the cooling system for battery module.