Microchannel cooling plates with non-uniform airfoil fin arrangement for large-capacity marine battery: An experimental study

Abstract

In the process of charging and discharging, the heat generation of the battery is uneven, which is more obvious for large-capacity batteries. To maintain the performance of the battery, the thermal management system based on the cooling plate is of critical importance. In this paper, the non-uniform airfoil fins arrangement of microchannel cooling plates for marine large capacity battery thermal management are designed and tested. The cooling performances of the uniform airfoil fins arrangement (UAFA), non-uniform airfoil fins arrangement 1 (N-UAFA 1) and non-uniform airfoil fins arrangement 2 (N-UAFA 2) are experimentally investigated. The maximum temperature (Tmax) and temperature standard deviation (SD) of battery module during charge and discharge process are compared with the variation of the volume flow rate (qv), the cooling water inlet temperature (Tin) and the charge–discharge rate (CR). The experimental results demonstrate that increasing qv and decreasing Tin would contribute to lower Tmax but higher SD. Both Tmax and SD increase with the CR increasing. The cooling effectiveness of the non-uniform airfoil fins arrangement is validated by the reduced Tmax and the robustness in SD control. In particular, the newly designed N-UAFA 2 microchannel could relief the contradiction between cooling capacity and the temperature uniformity. For all the working conditions, the N-UAFA 2 exhibited the best performance. Especially at the CR of 0.5C, the N-UAFA 2 could manage the Tmax and the SD below 36.8 °C and 1.5 °C, respectively.