Investigation on the thermal behavior of thermal management system for battery pack with heat pipe based on multiphysics coupling model

A well-designed battery thermal management system (BTMS) is crucial for maintaining battery life and ensuring safety in large capacity electrochemical energy storage systems. Experimental and numerical investigation have been conducted on the BTMS with heat pipe (HP) cooling. A multiphysics coupling model has been established for predicting the electrical and thermal behavior of BTMS, including HP models, electrochemical models, and computational fluid dynamics models. The model's reliability has been verified through a comprehensive set of experiments. The results show that the optimal heat dissipation effect can be achieved when the condensers of HP are distributed on both sides of the battery pack and arranged triangularly. With increasing inlet coolant velocity, the maximum temperature decreases, but the temperature uniformity deteriorates. As the inlet air temperature decreases, both the maximum temperature and the temperature uniformity decrease. The aircooling HP-BTMS is only suitable for low discharge rates, while the liquid cooling HP-BTMS can meet the control requirements of the maximum temperature and uniformity at 3C discharge. The model has practicality in structures design and control strategies development for HP-BTMS.