Thermal management of a simulated battery with the compound use of phase change material and fins: Experimental and numerical investigations

The low thermal conductivity of Phase change materials (PCM) is the primary constraint of the PCM based battery thermal management systems. To solve this problem, we propose novel fin structures constituting straight and arc fins for heat transfer enhancement. Experimental results indicate that the proposed fins prolong the working time of the battery by 54?90% compared to the pure PCM system under the discharging process. Visualization of PCM during the melting process shows that these fins increase the heat exchange area and lead into new multi-path network for thermal conduction in the PCM that significantly increase the heat dissipation rate from the battery to PCM. Numerical simulations are also performed by Fluent to examine the influences of the parameters of the proposed fins on the thermal control performance. Results demonstrate that straight and arc fins further form a network for thermal conduction, and increasing the radial distance and length of arc fins helps to expand the network and thereby enhance the thermal performance. In particular, the working time for the PCM-Fin system is increased by 157%, 189%, and 238% compared to those of the PCM system for the ambient temperature of 20 ?C, 30 ?C, and 40 ?C, respectively, demonstrating the effectiveness of the PCM-Fin system.

Automated summary

A novel PCM-Fin thermal management system is proposed to significantly prolong the working time of batteries and enhance thermal performance. Experimental and numerical results demonstrate the importance of the proposed heat transfer enhancement structures in improving the thermal control performance of PCM systems.