Influence of various parameters on the cooling performance of battery thermal management systems based on phase change materials

Abstract

The Electric Vehicle (EV) market is expanding rapidly, owing to their significant contributions to sustainability. But to completely replace conventional Internal Combustion Engines (ICEs), it is necessary to increase the efficiency of EVs. Hence, researchers are now focussing on improving the performance of EVs by increasing the efficiency of critical components of an EV, which include the battery, motor, inverter, etc. Battery Thermal Management System (BTMS) is an essential part of EVs, to control the temperature of Li-ion batteries, which in turn improves the efficiency of EVs. BTMS using Phase Change Materials (PCM) is a potential solution to replace the air and liquid cooling methods which are energy-consuming. The present study aims to analyse the effect of material, thickness, additive percentage, and heat transfer coefficient on the cooling performance of the PCM by numerical simulation using ANSYS Fluent with a validated model. Capric Acid, RT-35, RT-42, RT-55 was the PCM materials used in the study with varying thicknesses of 2 mm, 4 mm, 6 mm, and 8 mm, and varying heat transfer coefficients of 5, 7, 9, 11 W/m2 K. The additive used in the study was copper foam, added in varying percentages of 1, 3, 5, and 7 percent by volume. From the L16 results, the minimum cell temperature is obtained for the combination number 4 (303.088 K), which used Capric acid as the base PCM and RT-35 also showed promising thermal management capability. From the ANOVA results, it was concluded that the most influential parameter related to the cooling performance of PCM based-BTMS is the PCM material (35.4 %) followed by PCM thickness (35.13 %), heat transfer coefficient (13.98 %) and additive percentage (5.09 %).