Thermal management of lithium-ion battery in the presence of phase change material with nanoparticles considering thermal contact resistance

Abstract

This work is devoted to investigating the thermal management of a lithium-ion battery during four stages of charging and discharging in the presence of phase change material. In this regard, the phase change material is located between the battery and ambient temperature considering thermal contact resistance. The analytical solution calculates the temperature jump at the interface between the battery and the phase change material to validate the numerical results under non-melting conditions. The lattice Boltzmann method is used to cover the momentum and energy equations with two relaxation times preventing numerical diffusion in the solid-liquid interface. Also, copper oxide nanoparticles in the range of 1 % to 5 % have been used to enhance the thermal conductivity of the phase change material. It is found that the maximum temperature of the battery in the absence of phase change material increased by 17 %, while it increases only by 1.7 % in the presence of phase change material when the ambient temperature changes from −20 to 50 °C. Results show that in conditions where there is complete melting, increasing the thickness of the phase change material causes a decrease in the maximum temperature of the battery. Also, it is shown that increasing the contact thermal resistance increases the maximum temperature of the battery and decreases the liquid fraction so that when the resistance reaches 0.0052 Km2/W, the maximum temperature of the battery increases by 1.1 °C, and the liquid fraction decreases by 11.23 %. Moreover, adding 5 % copper oxide nanoparticles to the phase change material reduces the battery temperature by 1 °C and increases the liquid fraction by 15.17 %.