A novel battery thermal management system for an unmanned aerial vehicle using the graphene directional heat transfer structure

Accumulated chemical exothermic reaction can reduce the battery performance, this requires a lightweight and portable thermal management system due to drone weight and space limitation in an unmanned aircraft vehicle (UAV). In this work, a novel lightweight and portable directional heat transfer structure is proposed for battery heat dissipation in UAV. The high thermal conductivity graphene paper directionally transfers the heat produced in battery to the compact aluminum fin, and then the transferred heat can be brought away by force convection in cooling air during cruising. The effects of cruise velocity and altitude on the heat dissipation efficiency of directional heat transfer structure are discussed. Results show that the maximum temperature in battery with directional heat transfer structure reduces by 34.00 % and the cruise time for UAV can be extended by 253.33 % compared with those without directional heat transfer structure. The maximum temperature in battery with directional heat transfer structure decreases by 15.13 K and 11.42 K with cruise velocity increasing from 10 m/s to 50 m/s and altitude increasing from 0 m to 8000 m. The above findings prove a guide for designing efficient battery cooling device for UAV.