Steady-state thermal investigations on cold plate using FEM

Abstract

The optimal life of the Lithium-ion battery is ensured when cooled effectively against excessive heat generation. One such thermal management method is liquid cooling using cold plates. The purpose of this study is to find the temperature distribution and the maximum temperature across a Cold Plate Heat Exchanger in the Battery Thermal Management systems by the use of Finite Element Method. The temperature distribution is examined with and without the effects of radiation for steady-state conditions. The effects of variation of input parameters such as heat flux to the cold plate from the battery pack, inlet coolant temperature and coolant mass flow rate on the maximum temperature of the cold plate are also presented in this study. A general-purpose code is developed, to discretize the Cold Plate into ‘n’ number of six-noded elements in MATLAB. This single robust code can be used to analyze Cold plate design based on multiple serpentine channel configurations. The maximum temperature and standard deviation in temperature obtained from the analysis are in close agreement with the Computational Fluid Dynamics data available in the literature for steady-state conditions. The pressure drop between the inlet and outlet of the cold plate is also verified.