Investigation on Thermal Performance of Battery Cooling Plate for Lithium-Ion Battery

Electric vehicles are regarded to be the most effective way to lower emissions of greenhouse gases from the transportation industry. Lithium-ion batteries are rechargeable and ideally suited for vehicle electrification due to their high specific energy and energy density in comparison to other batteries. Electric vehicle performance greatly depends on the efficient operation of lithium-ion battery. Battery thermal management plays a crucial role in ensuring optimum vehicle operation. Heat dissipation from the battery should be dealt with, for safe operation and to prolong the battery life cycle. To achieve the battery’s optimal temperature, an efficient cooling system should be established. The battery cooling plate is an essential component that is necessary for heat transfer from the battery pack to the coolant. Five different battery cooling plates with linear dimple, staggered dimple, straight channel, wave channel and splitter channel are modeled for computational fluid dynamics simulation. Models are compared based on pressure drop, fluid velocity and temperature distribution. Based on the results, the model with optimum performance is found for application in battery thermal management system. Linear dimple channel for battery thermal plates provides less pressure drop which leads to less power consumption compared to other channels. Thus, reducing the work done by the pump will increase the range of electric vehicles.