Title: Experimental study of lithium-ion battery cooling using mixture of phase change materials

Authors: R. Pradeep; T. Venugopal

Addresses: School of Mechanical and Building Sciences, VIT University, Chennai-600127, Tamil Nadu, India ' School of Mechanical and Building Sciences, VIT University, Chennai-600127, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract: Phase change materials (PCM) are of attractive interest in electricity storage and power management applications. In this paper, PCMs are used for thermal management of an electric battery pack. Paraffin with a melting temperature of 58°C, OM35 with melting temperature of 35°C, two PCMs (paraffin and OM 35) were used for the study, as mixtures at two different ratios (50 : 50 and 60 : 40). Computations and experiments were allotted to estimate the heat transfer, solidifying and melting characteristics of the PCM utilised in the Li-ion cell battery module. Since PCM has low thermal conduction, thermal improvement techniques were investigated by inserting the copper plate into the PCM mixtures to boost the thermal conduction. PCM combination 50 : 50 is capable of holding battery running temperature compared to PCM combination 60 : 40. PCM combination 50 : 50 evidences to be ideal and lowered the operating temperature of the battery pack to 47°C.

Keywords: Li-ion cell; battery thermal management; PCM; phase change materials; CFD; computational fluid dynamics; battery module; copper plate; PCM combinations.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEHV.2020.106354

International Journal of Electric and Hybrid Vehicles, 2020 Vol.12 No.2, pp.168 - 183

Received: 04 Oct 2019
Accepted: 30 Oct 2019
Published online: 02 Apr 2020 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article