Thermal management of lithium ion battery module: Air cooling strategies for the hotspots

Temperature is a critical factor that affects the performance, safety and cycle life of Lithium-ion batteries. Therefore, proper battery thermal management system is essential for the success of electric vehicles. In this study, three dimensional numerical simulations were performed for thermal behaviors and flow characteristics of the stagger-arranged battery pack with fixed parts between batteries. These two parameters, namely, Reynolds number, thermal conductivity of fixed part materials between batteries were examined. The numerical results show that (i) the thermal behavior of the stagger-arranged battery pack is seriously affected by the fixed parts between batteries with low thermal conductivity. In addition, the high temperature zones of computational domain occur at the fixed parts between the last two rows of batteries along airflow direction; (ii) as for the stagger-arranged battery pack with laminar airflow, the required lowest thermal conductivity of fixed parts is 2 W∙m^-1∙K^-1 to satisfy thermal behavior and electrical insulation concurrently.