Thermal performance of lithium ion battery pack by using cold plate

Thermal performance is vital to the lithium ion battery pack of electric vehicles. In order to study the thermal performance of battery pack, a liquid cooling battery pack consisted of four batteries and five cold plates was established in this paper. The effects of mass flow of cooling liquid, cold plate number, channel distribution and cooling direction on the thermal behaviors of the battery pack were analyzed. The results showed that the mass flow of 1 g.s(-1) was suitable for heat dissipation and the maximum temperatures of battery pack were 27.67 degrees C and 32.17 degrees C after 3C and 5C discharge, respectively. Besides, the best heat dissipation condition can be achieved by placing more cooling channels in the middle of the battery pack where heat gathers easily, such as Design 532, the maximum temperature after 3C and 5C discharge reached 27.59 degrees C and 31.96 degrees C, respectively. Furthermore, it was found that reasonable cooling direction can effectively improve the uniformity of temperature distribution of battery pack.