Battery thermal management through simulation and experiment: Air cooling and enhancement

One of the main challenges in the advancement of electric vehicles is the requirement of thermal management strategies for lithium-ion batteries that can maintain the cell temperatures within the optimum limits of 25–40°C and the temperature uniformity to less than 5°C. This chapter discusses passive air-cooling strategies implemented by incorporating components such as vortex generators, jet inlets, and secondary airflow inlets into a simple battery pack design. The chapter is structured as follows: Section 1 provides an introduction. This is followed by the background of electric vehicle cells, along with the literature review in Section 2. The experimental and numerical methodology is provided in Section 3. In this section, the experimental setup and procedures are discussed. Additionally, the numerical methodology provides the details of the different models, mesh, and boundary conditions. In Section 4, the outcomes of the different studies are presented and discussed. Finally, the conclusions and summary are provided in Section 5. Moreover, the proposed battery pack strategy and configuration achieved a reduction of 6% in the maximum temperature and an increase of 24% in the temperature uniformity at the pack level. Additionally, a 37% increase was achieved in temperature uniformity at the cell level. Moreover, temperature uniformity of less than 5°C was achieved at both the pack and cell levels.