Thermal analysis and optimization of an EV battery pack for real applications

Abstract Battery packs are extensively used in electrical vehicles (EV) to avoid environmental pollution. The safety, aging and life of battery pack are significantly related to its thermal behavior. This work concerns with thermal analysis and optimization of an EV battery pack for real engineering applications. The Bernardi's heat generation model with the consideration of reversible heat is used and validated by tests and numerical simulation on battery cells. Then the validated cell model is applied to an EV battery pack with cooling system underneath for the study of thermal behavior at two extreme operation conditions, and numerical results are in good agreement with the test results. Several key factors important to the thermal behavior of battery packs are studied by performing sensitivity analysis at these two operation conditions, and it is found that the inlet temperature and the inlet flow are the two most significant factors. For better thermal performance of the EV battery pack, optimization analysis at two extreme operation conditions is conducted to determine the optimal parameters for the inlet temperature and the inlet flow, and this optimization process provides a means to find out the best input parameters for real engineering problems.