Numerical investigation of different cooling applications for pouch type lithium ion battery cells

In this study, the thermal behavior and performance of pouch type Lithium-ion batteries cell used in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV) and Electric Vehicles (EV) at different discharge rates were investigated based on numerical simulations. Numerical simulation was performed through a traditional software package using the dual potential Multi-Scale Multi-Dimensional (MSMD) battery model to analyze the cell discharge behavior and investigate its thermal performance. When the battery load is increased, non-uniform thermal distribution and temperature rise has been observed. It has been seen that applied model is accurate to be used in battery thermal management systems to ensure uniform thermal distribution of battery cell. Air, liquid and phase change materials (FDM), which are one of the three methods of cooling systems, were applied to the battery cell in cooling discharge state and their performance was compared. Comparing the performances of the cooling systems, the simulation results reflected the fact that the liquid cooling system, which is also quite common in commercial, cools the battery better than the others, as it cools the battery by 1.11% with air, 3% with liquid, 1.33% with FDM.