Passive battery thermal management system for an unmanned aerial vehicle using a tetrahedral lattice porous plate

Abstract

Lithium-ion batteries (LIB) are the main energy source for unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAVs) and drones. A drone operates at various ambient temperatures, depending on its flight characteristics. For optimal performance, this requires the application of a passive battery thermal management system (BTMS) that does not require additional equipment due to drone weight limitations. This study proposes applying a multifunctional tetrahedral lattice porous plate (TLPP) to analyze the performance of a passive BTMS using aspirated airflow through a drone flight mode. A battery cell constant-current discharge experiment is conducted to derive the equivalent internal resistance of the battery cells for the numerical simulation of battery heat generation. The performance of a passive BTMS with a TLPP channel, including part of the freestream through a series of drone modes, is analyzed using experiments and numerical simulations at the battery cell and module levels. The main conclusion of this study was that in a numerical simulation of takeoff and landing in drone operation mode, the maximum temperature, and deviation reduction rates were 22 % and 4 9%, respectively. Additionally, the maximum temperature and deviation from the TLPP application under conditions in which some freestreams were aspirated during the drone's forward flight were reduced by 35 % and 76 %, respectively. It is confirmed that the maximum temperature and deviation on the battery surface are significantly reduced due to the application of TLPP on a bare battery. Therefore, passive BTMS with TLPP can provide effective multifunctionality for the thermal management of drone batteries.