Experimental investigation of battery thermal management system for electric vehicle based on paraffin/copper foam

To enhance the heat transfer of phase change material in battery thermal management system for electric vehicle, a battery thermal management system by using paraffin/copper foam was designed and experimentally investigated in this paper. The thermal performances of the system such as temperature reduction and distribution are discussed in detail. The results showed that the local temperature difference in both a single cell and battery module were increased with the increase of discharge current, and obvious fluctuations of local temperature difference can be observed when the electric vehicle is in road operating state. When the battery is discharging at constant current, the maximum temperature and local temperature difference of the battery module with paraffin/copper foam was lower than 45 degrees C and 5 degrees C, respectively. After the battery thermal management system was assembled in electric vehicle, the maximum temperature and local temperature difference in road operating state was lower than 40 degrees C and 3 degrees C, respectively. The experimental results demonstrated that paraffin/copper foam coupled battery thermal management presented an excellent cooling performance. (C) 2014 Energy Institute. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.