Modelling of battery thermal management: A new concept of cooling using fuel

Abstract

Battery thermal management system (BTMS) design is crucial for its performance, which can be associated with extra costs and system complexity. Most of the current studies are focused on the BTMS design but with a little focus on the improvement of coolants. In this work, the feasibility of using combustion engine fuel for the LIB thermal management of hybrid electric vehicles is investigated. N-heptane is used as a dielectric hydrocarbon coolant in the introduced system. The thermal performance of the proposed system is investigated numerically using the CFD software ANSYS-Fluent. To benchmark and validate the system performance, a comparative study is made among other common approaches, including the use of air and 3M-Novec 7200. A variety of input parameters are accounted for, including inlet velocities and discharge rates. The results show that air cooling is the least effective method to control the battery module temperature uniformity and the Li-ion battery safety limit. At the same time, n-heptane and 3M-Novec 7200 have shown good control of the module temperature range (20 °C–40 °C) at various discharge rates and different inlet velocities. However, using n-heptane is a considerable improvement to the cost of the system and reduction in its weight and maximum temperature, compared to that using 3M-Novec 7200 coolant. For instance, at 0.1 m·s-1, n-heptane has reduced the Li-ion battery maximum temperature at 1C and 2C discharge rates by more than 7.9 °C (2.6%) and 17.9 °C (5.65%), respectively, compared to those predicted using the same battery module without cooling.