Study of wet cooling flat heat pipe for battery thermal management application

In this study, a battery thermal manage system combining wet cooling and flat heat pipe is proposed, in which the moist medium has no contact with battery to ensure electrical safety. The system compactness is optimized for electrical vehicle application. Numerical model was built and verified to study the efficiency of the new design. Compared with traditional air cooling, the proposed design has an advantage in maximum temperature control. The maximum temperatures are 16.93 degrees C, 26.07 degrees C and 36.27 degrees C for 1C, 2C and 3C discharging, respectively. However, due to the low temperature near the inlet caused by wet cooling, temperature uniformity of the proposed design has deteriorated. The maximum temperature differences are 6.37 degrees C, 8.68 degrees C and 15.68 degrees C for 1C, 2C and 3C, respectively. The influence of various inlet relative humidity was investigated. With the in-crease of inlet humidity, the maximum temperature raised while the temperature uniformity improved. In order to save parasitic power consumption and minimize temperature difference, it is suggested to combine the air cooling with wet cooling.

Automated summary

A battery thermal management system combining wet cooling and flat heat pipe is proposed in this study for electrical vehicles. The system is optimized for compactness, and a numerical model is built to study its efficiency. Compared to traditional air cooling, the proposed design has an advantage in maximum temperature control but compromises temperature uniformity. Increasing inlet humidity improves temperature uniformity but raises the maximum temperature.