Design and Simulation of Internal Flowing Twisted Conduits for Cooling of Lithium-Ion Batteries through Thermal Characterization

Lithium-ion batteries are extensively used for electric vehicles, owing to their great power and energy density. A battery thermal management system is essential for lithium-ion batteries. With the extensive utilization of liquid-cooling approaches for lithium-ion batteries’ thermal management, temperature homogeneity is considerably influenced by coolant distribution. A lower temperature of the cooling fluid brings about a lower temperature of the cell, but the relation and the amount are important to be analyzed. The cooling efficiency is considerably influenced by the flowing conduit arrangement in the cooling plate. Different parameters are affected by the cooling performance of the battery pack. Consequently, the effect of entrance temperature of coolant fluid, current rate, environment temperature, entrance velocity of the coolant fluid, and plate material on the performance and efficiency of a battery thermal management system were investigated. In this investigation, the program ANSYS/FLUENT was employed as the numerical solver to solve the problem. The simulation was accomplished after the end of the discharge. It was seen that the temperature distributions were the most sensitive to the entrance velocity of coolant fluid. It was concluded that the entrance velocity of coolant fluid has the greatest impact on the cooling efficiency and performance of the cold plate.