Evaluation on Battery Thermal Management through Liquid Cooling Plate Geometric Parameter Design for Electric Vehicles

Lithium-ion batteries are the most preferable power source for electric vehicles due to their high energy density compared to other battery types. However, the life cycle, battery capacity, and safe operation are significantly influenced by the operating temperatures of the batteries. In general, most of the battery thermal management systems employ battery cooling plates to maintain the required battery temperature. However, there are significant problems in battery cooling such as coolant temperature difference, non-uniform velocity distribution, coolant pressure drop and power consumption, which are influenced by cooling plate channel geometric parameters. In this study, different combinations of critical parameters such as channel width, channel height and dimple diameter of battery cooling plates are modelled. Simulations are made using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). From the results, pressure drop, temperature rise and power consumption are analyzed to identify the dominant parameters.