Design and analysis of battery thermal management system employing air cooling method

Li-ion batteries are an essential component used in Electric Vehicles and Hybrid Electric Vehicles, where their temperature contributes a significant effect on safety and performance. This study design and analysis for a battery thermal management system using air as a coolant. The work was done by employing ANSYS Fluent. The modification of the position of the battery module with 18650 batteries was investigated. The space between the batteries supports the air conditioner flowing in and out. The two sides of the battery module wall were also fully opened. The heat generated during discharge was simulated with the help of a user-defined function. The ambient air temperature was set by 22 °C, where air velocity was kept constant by 0.1 m/s. A pressure-based, laminar, k-epsilon turbulent, incompressible, transient solver was used in the simulation. The solver used a SIMPLE algorithm for pressure and velocity coupling. Airflow in the fluid domain was considered as laminar flow. A three-dimensional arrangement equation solves the computing domain for mass, momentum, and energy eternity during battery discharge conditions. Fluid domains and solid domains are combined to simulate conjugate heat transfer. The simulation shows that the staggered battery module lowers the temperature better than the aligned battery module.