Numerical development of effective cooling system for battery pack of electric vehicles

The invention of electric vehicles (EVs) was geared towards minimization of carbon emission of gasoline vehicles into the atmosphere which consequentially promotes a sustainable environment. Basically, heat dissipated by the battery of EVs, must be mitigated for life elongation of the battery cell, safety and effective performance of the EVs. In this paper, numerical thermal analysis of minichannel embedded with aluminum foam stacked on a rectangular frame was presented as a proposed cooling system for EVs battery pack. At 298 K and discharge rate of 6C, 3340.135MW/cm(3) of total heat dissipated by a pack of Lithium-ion battery, consisting of five different 20Ahm(-2) capacity battery cells arranged in parallel was imposed on designed cooling structure as volumetric heat transfer in the simulation. Nusselt number, pumping power, Reynolds number and porosity effect of aluminum foam or solid pin fin on thermal performance of cooling configuration were investigated at various inlet velocities. Minichannel embedded with SPF or AF gave higher Nusselt number when compared with plain minichannel. At high cost of pumping power and low porosity the result demonstrated improved thermal performance of minichannel with embedded AF over the plain minichannel. The insignificant superiority of better thermal performance of cooling configuration with embedded SPF over AF was established with higher fluid flow velocities. With attainment of 28.5 degrees C frame surface temperature at lower cost of pumping power and more than 3 times Nusselt number recorded with cooling configuration of minichannel embedded with SPF over a cooling configuration with plain minichannel, embedded minichannel with SPF stacked on a rectangular frame is recommended as a cooling system for Lithium-ion battery pack of EVs. Copyright (C) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.