Innovative Fluid Allowing a New and Efficient Battery Thermal Management

With the increasing availability of fast charging stations across the globe, tighter and tighter constraints are placed on electric vehicles batteries. In order to handle the thermal stresses induced during fast charging, the improvement of the existing battery thermal management systems has become key. This article presents an innovative thermal management system for batteries. The system consists of circulating a newly developed highly advanced dielectric fluid in direct contact with the electrochemical cells of the battery pack. Experiments on our dedicated bench test and numerical simulations are reported here demonstrating the performance of this system with fluids, i.e. its ability to efficiently regulate the temperature of the battery cells even under fast charging conditions and low flow rates. Consequently, this thermal management strategy could be implemented within the next generation of battery electric vehicle (BEV) using conventional pumping systems and lead to an improved battery lifetime and therefore a lower total cost of BEV ownership.