Prediction on thermal performance of refrigerant-based battery thermal management system for a HEV battery pack

Abstract

The thermal performance of refrigerant-based battery thermal management system (BTMS) for a real HEV battery pack in both the cooling and heating conditions is numerically and experimentally investigated in this paper. The heat generation model of battery cells and the numerical methodology for predicting the cooling performance of refrigerant-based cooling system are validated by experiments and the predicted results are consistent with experimental data. The effects of discharging C-rate, mass flow rate, initial temperature and vapor quality of refrigerant on thermal performance of battery pack are analyzed in detail. The thermal performance of refrigerant-based BTMS at a real driving cycle is also examined. The results indicate that the discharging C-rate has a significant impact on thermal performance of battery pack due to the distinctive heat transfer behaviors of battery pack at different discharging C-rates. Increasing mass flow rate of refrigerant is contributed to descend the maximum temperature and improve temperature uniformity of battery pack. Decreasing initial temperature of refrigerant is beneficial to reducing the maximum temperature of battery pack but is disadvantageous to temperature uniformity. The effect of vapor quality on thermal performance of battery pack is limited. The cooling performance of refrigerant satisfies the requirement of BTMS at the real driving cycle. The optimum heating power of the battery pack at heating condition ranges from 400 W to 460 W.