Simulation on cooling performance characteristics of a refrigerant-cooled active thermal management system for lithium ion batteries

• Published in: International journal of heat and mass transfer 2019-06, Vol.135, p.131-141
• Main Authors: Park, Seonggi, Jang, Dong Soo, Lee, DongChan, Hong, Seong Ho, Kim, Yongchan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Computer simulation; Cooling; Cooling performance; Cooling rate; Electric vehicles; Hybrid electric vehicles; Lithium; Lithium ion battery; Lithium-ion batteries; Mass flow rate; Mathematical models; PCM-based passive TMS; Phase change materials; Product design; Rechargeable batteries; Refrigerant-cooled active TMS; Refrigerants; Thermal management; Thermal management system
• ISSN: 0017-9310; 1879-2189
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2019.01.109

•Numerical models of passive and active two-phase TMSs are developed.•Numerical results show good agreement with experimental results and reference data.•The performance of active TMS is greatly affected by the refrigerant temperature.•Both TMSs show good performance under mild and stressful operating conditions.•In the cyclic operation, the active TMS has better performance than the passive TMS. In this study, numerical models of an active thermal management system (TMS) using a two-phase refrigerant and a passive TMS using phase change material (PCM) for lithium ion batteries in electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) are developed. The models are validated by comparing the predictions with the measured data. The effects of the refrigerant temperature and mass flow rate on the cooling performance of the refrigerant-cooled active TMS are analyzed. Moreover, the cooling performance characteristics of the refrigerant-cooled active and PCM-based passive TMSs are compared under various single discharge and cyclic operating conditions. The passive and active TMSs show excellent performances under mild and stressful operating conditions where discharge occurs. However, in the cyclic operation where charge and discharge are merged, the refrigerant-cooled active TMS shows better cooling performance than the PCM-based passive TMS.