Fluid and Thermal Analysis of Power Li-Ion Battery Pack and Experimental Verification

Fluid flow and heat transfer of a power li-ion battery pack which adopts the air cooling method with an electric fan are predicted using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software. The airflow rate distributions at coolant passages are analyzed quantificationally, which will affect temperature distribution of the battery pack. Temperatures at the center of battery surface that are located in the middle of each battery modules are monitored using thermal couples under the same driving cycle as simulation. The simulation results are close to the experimental ones, which indicate that the calculated results can be used as the basis of developing thermal management strategy of battery pack and optimization scheme of fluid flow.