Time-Accurate CFD Analysis of Liquid Cold Plates for Efficient Thermal Performance of Electric Vehicle Li-Ion Battery Modules

An efficient Thermal Management System (TMS) is crucial for superior performance of an automotive Li-ion Battery Module (BM). Liquid-Cooled TMS, consisting of a coolant flow through a cold plate, offers higher rate of heat transfer compared to passive or forced-air cooled TMS, thus allowing cells to charge/discharge at aggressive rates and higher ambient temperatures while maintaining the cell temperatures within an optimal range. In the current study, we investigate the effect of a variety of cold plate channel sizes and configurations on the overall thermal performance of a liquid-cooled BM using three-dimensional, time-accurate CFD simulations with variable heat load from cylindrical 21700 Li-ion cells. Specifically, we consider 8 different cold plate designs by varying the size and the flow path of the coolant channels. For all the cold plate designs, we evaluate the average and maximum cell temperatures, and heat transfer rate at a module discharge rate of 1C. Additionally, the coolant pressure drop across the entire cold plate is also computed, which helps in providing information about the energy efficiency of the TMS.