Abstract
Lithium-ion batteries are widely used in high power applications and, with more industries focusing on the electrification of their processes, the need for an effective battery thermal management system is growing. The use of a thermal management system serves multiple purposes such as safeguarding the battery from catastrophic thermal runaway and increasing the lifespan of the battery pack. In the present paper, the thermal management of a sixteen-cell battery module, by two different configurations of a heat pipe based thermal management system, is investigated experimentally. In the first configuration, the module is fixed on top of a single horizontal ‘heat mat’. The second configuration consists of the module sandwiched between two vertical heat mats. The comparison of the cooling performances of these two configurations showed their ability to efficiently absorb the heat generated by the cells and maintain their temperatures close to the ideal operating range. During representative cycles of operation, the maximum cell temperature was kept below 28.5 °C and 24.5 °C for the horizontal and vertical heat mat configurations respectively. The cell temperature uniformity across the module stays in a +/-1 °C range, which will reduce cell voltage imbalance, loss of useable capacity and non-uniform ageing. The maximum temperature difference across the height of the cells was 6 °C for the horizontal configuration and 2 °C for the vertical one. The second part of this paper compares the heat removed in both configurations when loaded with a quasi-steady-state heat generation. The third study uses a faster (6C) charge rate during a representative cycle and shows that the maximum temperature stays below 30 °C and 28 °C for the horizontal and vertical configurations respectively.
Highlights
The application of Lithium ion batteries is at the epi-centre of the electrification of many industries such as transport and energy
This research presented the use of a Heat Mat as a battery thermal management solution, two different module integrations were studied and compared
A battery located on top of a horizontal heat mat showed significant cooling performance, by keeping the cells in an 18 ◦C to 29 ◦C range on average
Summary
The application of Lithium ion batteries is at the epi-centre of the electrification of many industries such as transport and energy. One of the key industries currently moving towards de-carbonisation is the automotive industry by the development of electric vehicles (EV). The European car fleet is expected to reach 19% of EV by 2030. The trend is similar with the number of EVs expected to in crease by 50 times by 2030 [1]. The increase in EVs provides an immediate solution to the growing pollution issue prevalent in large cities, the UK in particular has launched a recent incentive to reduce vehicle emissions. The incentive focuses on the development of zero-emission vehicles to accelerate the decarbonisation of the public transport network in England and Wales with a specific focus on the existing bus fleet (5700 vehicles since 2013) [2]
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