Plenum shape and position play a significant impact on the heat dissipation performance of battery pack with air-cooled structure. However, the existed plenum shape and position are simple. In this work, four different plenum shapes (slanted, convex, concave and stepped) of the battery thermal management system (BTMS) are designed. Then the influences of plenum shapes and positions (at the inlet, outlet, and inlet & outlet) on the heat dissipation performance of the battery are investigated, respectively. Subsequently, a single factor analysis is performed to obtain the range of the design parameters (Hin, Hout, Rin and Rout) in Design 6. Finally, a multi-objective optimization of Design 6 is carried out to further improve the thermal performance of BTMS. Numerical results demonstrate that: 1) For the significant improvement of the cooling ability, convex plenum is at the inlet & outlet whereas other shape ones are all at the inlet. 2) No matter where it is at the inlet, outlet, or inlet & outlet, the convex plenum achieves the excellent cooling effect in Z- and U-type air-cooled structures. 3) Design 6 (convex plenum at the inlet & outlet) exhibits the best cooling ability among all plenum shapes and positions. 4) The design parameters of the optimized Design 6 are Hin = 17.9 mm, Hout = 19 mm, Rin = 2100 mm and Rout = 2000 mm, and the maximum temperature and temperature difference respectively achieve a 35.06 % (18.921 K) and 76.98 % (19.923 K) reduction under such optimized design parameter settings in comparison with those of the benchmark (Design 9).
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