THE JOURNAL OF KMUTNB

Volume 33, No. 02, Month APRIL, Year 2023, Pages -

Cell arrangement of lithium-ion battery pack for improvement in cooling performance of air-cooled battery thermal management system

Isares Dhuchakallaya, Patcharin Saechan

Abstract Download PDF

Air-cooled thermal management system has been numerically studied due to low manufacturing cost, simple layout structure and high reliability of the system. A set of Lithium-ion battery pack 18650B consisting of 40 cells was investigated under different cell arrangement structures, i.e., inline, offset, and staggered configurations in order to evaluate their cooling performances. Additionally, the effects of inlet velocity and discharge rate were taken into consideration to guarantee the temperature of batteries in operation within an optimal range, i.e., not over 40 °C. The heat simulation model of battery cells was developed based on the data acquired from the test under various ambient temperatures. The simulation results revealed that the increased air velocity resulted in better cooling performance of the system. The continuously operating battery pack under the discharge rate of 0.5C may not rely on the forced air-cooling system. When the battery pack discharging of 1C-rate, it required at least the air velocity of 1 m/s for cooling the battery within the optimal working temperature range. However, the forced-air cooling strategy was unable to control the temperature of the battery cell in case of fast discharging rate. Furthermore, the best cell arrangement in terms of cooling performance is the inline configuration and the appropriate gap between adjacent cells is about 1.5 mm.

Keywords

Air-cooled; Cell Arrangement; Cooling Performance; Cylindrical Battery; Thermal Management

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