Investigations of Lithium-Ion Battery Thermal Management System with Hybrid PCM/Liquid Cooling Plate

To improve the operating performance of the large-capacity battery pack of electric vehicles during continuous charging and discharging and to avoid its thermal runaway, in this paper we propose a new hybrid thermal management system that couples the PCM with the liquid cooling plate with microchannels. The flow direction of the microchannel structure in the bottom plate is designed according to the characteristics of the large axial thermal conductivity of the battery, and the cooling performance of the whole system under continuous charge/discharge cycles is numerically simulated. The results show that the hybrid PCM/liquid cooling plate can maintain good cooling performance under the discharge process of a large-capacity battery pack. After each cycle the temperature of the battery pack can be reduced to less than 30 degrees, and the maximum temperature change rate of multiple cycles is controlled within 0.8%. With the application of the hybrid PCM/liquid-cooled plate battery cooling system, a safe temperature range of the battery pack is ensured even under multiple cycles of charging and discharging. The present work can facilitate future optimizations of the thermal management system of the large-capacity battery pack of electric vehicles.

Automated summary

In this paper, a new hybrid thermal management system that combines phase change material (PCM) with a liquid cooling plate with microchannels is proposed to improve the operating performance and prevent thermal runaway of the large-capacity battery pack of electric vehicles during continuous charging and discharging. Numerical simulations are conducted to design the flow direction of the microchannel structure and evaluate the cooling performance of the entire system under continuous charge/discharge cycles. The hybrid PCM/liquid cooling plate system demonstrates good cooling performance with the temperature of the battery pack reduced to less than 30 degrees after each cycle and the maximum temperature change rate controlled within 0.8% for multiple cycles. This research contributes to the optimization of thermal management systems for large-capacity battery packs in electric vehicles.