Thermal Behavior of Nickel-Metal Hydride Battery during Rapid Charge and Discharge Cycles

Abstract

The secondary batteries for the electric vehicle (EV) generate much heat during rapid charge and discharge cycles, when the EV starts quickly consuming the battery power and stops suddenly recovering the inertia energy. The generated heat increases significantly the cell temperature and causes possibly bad influences on the battery performance and the safely requirement. So we have studied the thermal behavior of nickel/metal hydride (Ni/MH) battery during rapid charge and discharge cycles, applying our previous battery thermal model, which have been confirmed to agree with the experimental results at smaller charge current than the rated current. The heat sources by the entropy change, the hydrogen occlusion and the side reaction have been referred to the published data, and the overpotential resistance and the current efficiency, the ratio of main reaction current to charge current, have been measured experimentally through the rapid charge and discharge characteristics with constant current. By using these data our thermal model for Ni/MH battery has estimated its temperature increase, which agrees well with the measured temperature rise, with the root mean square error of 1.5°C and 2.1°C for charge and discharge cycles, respectively.