Numerical investigation of the effect of inlet dimensions air duct and distance of battery packs for thermal management of three lithium-ion battery packs

Abstract

In this article, the cooling simulation of three battery packs (LIBPS) in a channel, each with 12 cells, is examined in the presence of airflow. Lithium-ion batteries (LITIB) are used in the flat-shaped batteries. The values ​​of battery temperature (TBattery), heat transfer coefficient (HTRC) from the battery to the air, and pressure drop (PRD) in the channel are estimated by changing the dimensions of the channel inlet from 0.2 to 0.8 m and the distance of the LIBPS from 0 to 0.4 m. The simulations are performed using Commercial software. The results show that an increment in the distance between the batteries can enhance the amount of PRD by 28.8%. Also, enhancing the dimensions of the channel inlet intensifies the amount of PRD by more than 3 times. Increasing the distance between the batteries enhances the amount of HTRC by 0.8%, which occurs for the inlet size of 0.8. An enhancement in the inlet size from 0 to 0.4 intensifies the HTRC by 283% (for a distance of 0.4). Increasing the distance between the LIBPS from 0 to 0.4 for the inlet sizes of 0.2 and 0.8 reduces the maximum temperature (MAX-T) by 15.3% and 3.2%, respectively. Quadrupling the inlet dimensions reduces the battery MAX-T by 93.8% and 73% for the best and worst conditions, respectively. The average TBattery is reduced from 2.4% to 8.8% as the distance between the LIBPS enhances. The highest reduction in average TBattery (52.4%) occurs by quadrupling the inlet dimensions of the stacked LIBPS.