Thermal management for high power lithium-ion battery by minichannel aluminum tubes

Lithium-ion batteries are widely used for battery electric (all-electric) vehicles (BEV) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) due to their high energy and power density. An battery thermal management system (BTMS) is crucial for the performance, lifetime, and safety of lithium-ion batteries. In this paper, a novel design of BTMS based on aluminum minichannel tubes is developed and applied on a single prismatic Li-ion cell under different discharge rates. Parametric studies are conducted to investigate the performance of the BTMS using different flow rates and configurations. With minichannel cooling, the maximum cell temperature at a discharge rate of 1C is less than 27.8 °C, and the temperature difference across the cell is less than 0.80 °C using flow rate at 0.20 L/min, at the expense of 8.69e-6 W pumping power. At higher discharge rates, e.g., 1.5C and 2C, higher flow rates are required to maintain the same temperature rise and temperature difference. The flow rate needed is 0.8 L/min for 1.5C and 2.0 L/min for 2C, while the required pumping power is 4.23e-4 W and 5.27e-3 W, respectively. The uniform temperature distribution (<1 °C) inside the single cell and efficient pumping power demonstrate that the minichannel cooling system provides a promising solution for the BTMS.