Improving the thermal-hydraulic performance of air-cooled battery thermal management system by flow splitters

The simplicity and cost-effectiveness of air-cooled battery thermal management system (BTMS) has made them increasingly popular. However, the heat of battery cannot be fully absorbed by the air at high discharge rates, which is a disadvantage that cannot be ignored. Moreover, the downstream battery's temperature cannot be lowered as it is affected by the upstream air with high-temperature. To address these disadvantages, an innovative air-cooled BTMS with flow splitters arranged at the rear of the batteries is proposed to improve the thermal-hydraulic performance of BTMS. The inclined flow splitter effectively decreases the wake zone behind the battery, and the pressure drop is significantly reduced by up to 11.9 % compared with the original model without flow splitter. Besides, the maximum temperature is reduced and the temperature uniformity is improved by the inclined flow splitter due to the heat conduction by the flow splitter and the decrease of wake zone size. The maximum temperature of the battery with inclined flow splitter decreases by 2.14 degrees C, and the temperature difference decreases by up to 49.2 % under the same pumping power compared with the original model without flow splitter. The arrangement of inclined flow splitter significantly enhanced the thermal-hydraulic performance of the air-cooled thermal management system, which served as a valuable reference for the future design of aircooled BTMS.