Combining an Electrothermal and Impedance Aging Model to Investigate Thermal Degradation Caused by Fast Charging

Fast charging is an exciting topic in the field of electric and hybrid electric vehicles (EVs/HEVs). In order to achieve faster charging times, fast-charging applications involve high-current profiles which can lead to high cell temperature increase, and in some cases thermal runaways. There has been some research on the impact caused by fast-charging profiles. This research is mostly focused on the electrical, thermal and aging aspects of the cell individually, but these factors are never treated together. In this paper, the thermal progression of the lithium-ion battery under specific fast-charging profiles is investigated and modeled. The cell is a Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide/graphite-based cell (NMC) rated at 20 Ah, and thermal images during fast-charging have been taken at four degradation states: 100%, 90%, 85%, and 80% State-of-Health (SoH). A semi-empirical resistance aging model is developed using gathered data from extensive cycling and calendar aging tests, which is coupled to an electrothermal model. This novel combined model achieves good agreement with the measurements, with simulation results always within 2 degrees C of the measured values. This study presents a modeling methodology that is usable to predict the potential temperature distribution for lithium-ion batteries (LiBs) during fast-charging profiles at different aging states, which would be of benefit for Battery Management Systems (BMS) in future thermal strategies.