Multi-objective topology optimization design of liquid-based cooling plate for 280 Ah prismatic energy storage battery thermal management

Developing energy storage system based on lithium-ion batteries has become a promising route to mitigate the intermittency of renewable energies and improve their utilization efficiency. In this context, thermal management is needed to maintain battery temperature and thermal uniformity without consuming significant power. However, conventional cooling plates are usually built via trial-and-error methods, which suffer from trade-off problem between thermal performance and flow resistance. In this study, a multi-physics model incorporating electrochemical, hydrodynamic, and thermal fields is proposed for a battery pack. Meanwhile, a multi-objective topology optimization is introduced to freely evolve the distribution of fluid domain embedded into cold plate under specified constraint conditions. The multi-objective function is formulated using normalized additive weighting approach. Based on this, the mapping relations between design parameters (i.e., Reynold number and weighting coefficients) and performance of cold plate can be established via response surface method, and it is further optimized with a non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm. Results show that topological channel structure performs lower average temperature rise than traditional straight, serpentine, and hexagonal cold plates. When the mass flow rate ranges from 1 × 10^-3 to 15 × 10^-3 kg s⁻¹, Nusselt number difference are varied from 1.33 to 5.90 compared to straight cold plate, which are improved by 15.6 to 42.2 %, respectively. This indicates that optimized cold plate achieves better heat exchange ability under the same inlet conditions. Besides, optimal design allows for excellent thermal uniformity without excessive pressure drop compared to serpentine cold plate.