Experimental investigation on thermal management of lithium-ion battery with roll bond liquid cooling plate

Abstract

• A liquid cooling plate with flexible flow channel design is fabricated using roll bond process, its thermal performance is verified experimentally. • Using proposed liquid cooling plate, the temperature of battery module is below 35 °C, and the temperature difference is within 5 °C at 2C discharge rate (750 W). • Compared with other studies, roll bond liquid cooling plate has strong heat transfer capacity, light weight and low cost. • Experimental results show that with Re increases, the improvement of the thermal performance of rib is greater than cavity. Lithium-ion batteries are widely used in energy storage systems owing to their high energy storage density, high energy storage efficiency, and stability. However, the power density of energy storage system is usually limited by thermal management. In this paper, the temperature distribution of the battery along the height direction is obtained. The thermal management analysis of two 100Ah lithium-ion batteries in series is carried out by using roll bond liquid cooling plate which has significant heat dissipation performance and low manufacturing cost. Cavity and rib structures are embedded in the serpentine channel and compared to the direct channel. Effects of flow rate and contact area are studied. The experimental results show that when charging and discharging at 1C, the cell temperature can be controlled by a low flow rate(12L/h) and the cavity structure with a large heat exchange area is dominant. In 2C discharge, large flow rate(>20L/h) is required. Rib structure with high flow rate and low water temperature has better performance. When discharged at 2C rate(750 W), roll bond liquid cooling plate can control the battery temperature below 35 °C and the temperature difference within 5 °C, at the cost of small pressure drop(5818 Pa). Compared with other studies, roll bond liquid cooling plate has strong heat transfer capacity, light weight and low cost, which is a promising solution for thermal management of energy storage batteries.