Experimental and computational analysis on lithium-ion battery thermal management system utilizing air cooling with radial fins

Battery thermal management system (BTMS) is essential for maintaining batteries in electric vehicles at a uniform temperature. The aim of the present work is to propose most suitable cooling for BTMS. The most significant factors in battery thermal management are operating temperature, reliability, safety, and battery life cycle. The experimental setup is designed and fabricated for that purpose. In experimental work, thermal performance parameter, i.e. variation of maximum cell temperature in battery pack with natural and forced convection, is studied and compared at three different charging rates low (1 C), moderate (2 C), and high (3 C). The numerical model for natural and forced convection battery thermal management is developed using Ansys 22.1. For the present work, the cylindrical cell Li-ion battery pack is considered and simulates the cooling effect due to natural convection and forced convection. For the various flow rate of air, the cooling effect is investigated and efficient flow velocity is obtained by a numerical model for two climatic conditions. Further, the cooling performance of the battery pack with and without fin for optimum velocity is simulated. Based on experimentation, it is seen that forced convection gives better results as compared to natural convection. The temperature drops from 60.46 °C to 43.03 °C (28.82%) at 1 C, 65.81 °C to 48.01 °C at 2 C (27.06%), and 67.05 °C to 50.4 °C (24.77%) at 3 C heat generation rate when forced convection is used for cooling purpose. In the numerical studies, charging of Li-ion cell at 1.5 C rate is studied. Using forced convection maximum temperature is reduced by 27.26% when the inlet velocity is kept 2 m s⁻¹ when ambient is 27 °C. Using fin, battery cell maximum temperature is reduced by 39.23%, as compared with natural convection. Using fin at 27 °C atmospheric temperature, battery cell maximum temperature is reduced by 39.23%, as compared with natural convection, and when the atmospheric temperature reaches to 41 °C, the maximum temperature is reduced to 51.26 °C (12.75%).