Study of battery thermal management implementing heat pipes and PCM

Abstract

The current technologies in battery packs when designing an efficient thermal system that dissipates heat in an homogeneous way through out the pack enabling a similar degradation of all the cells and similar working conditions is a topic that is still under study. The objective of this research is to utilise a combination of two currently used well-known technologies in batteries and electronics, i.e. phase change materials (PCM) and heat pipes, in order to enhance the heat dissipation possible and prolong battery life. This has been done by creating a car point mass model and impose some battery requirements to develop a battery that will have a capacity, energy density and weight similar to the available in the lithium ion battery market. With this information a 3D CAD design implementing the stated technology and the calculated specifications has been designed. Next step was to develop a thermal model with the cell heat generation and optimise the geometry for different work cycles in the cells. With this information, an Enhanced Self Correcting (ESC) cell model was developed that allows to give voltage and SOC of a cell for a given current and temperature array. This will be used to determine the vehicle range before reaching the cutoff voltage hence evaluate the improvement in battery performance due to heating reduction.