Table of Contents
What are different Cooling Methods for batteries in Electric Vehicles?
Introduction to Electric Vehicle
- Conventional vehicles use fossil fuel and pollution due to combustion is a serious concern on the environment. The scope of Electric vehicles (EV) has been essential due to the adverse impact of fossil fuels on the environment
- An electric vehicle does not use any fossil fuel for power generation and has zero emission
- Many initiatives have been taken to reduce air pollution using non-conventional energy sources. Electric vehicles use the electric battery and help to reduce pollution. External electric supply charges the battery which supplies electric power to the motor. The electric motors transfer power to the front and back wheels.
- Many automobile industries are shifting from internal combustion engine cars to electric vehicle
- Automotive industries have invested hugely in the research and development of electric vehicles at an affordable rate
- Electric vehicles have several advantages like improved energy efficiency, performance, and environmentally friendly, and are free from combustion-generated pollution
- Technologies in electric vehicles have been developed for thermal management for battery systems, power controllers,s and electric motor
Parts of Electric Vehicle
- Electric Engine or Motor: It is a prime mover and provides power to rotate the wheels. The electric motor can be DC or AC type, however, for electric vehicles, AC motors are widely used
- Inverter: it converts the electric current from DC into AC
- Drivetrain: EVs use a single-speed transmission that transfers electric power from the motor to the wheels of vehicles
- Batteries (Power Bank): Battery modules store the electricity required to drive an electric vehicle. The power capacity of the battery is measured in kW.
- Charging Point: EV charging point in the form of the plug to charge the battery modules


Challenges of Battery of Electric Vehicles
The following are major challenges faced in the development of battery
- Long Charging time
- Overheating battery
- High Cost of battery
- Safety against heating or short circuit
- The limited life of the battery
Effect of temperature on battery life
- Ensure battery operation under optimal temperature range (15 C to 35 C)
- Monitor the state of the battery and detect the critical point of battery failures and deliver alarm messages
- Suppress thermal runway propagation
Battery Thermal Management System (BTMS)
- The electric vehicle has a battery management system (BMS) to provide essential information such as:
- Thermal Protection
- Over and Under voltage protection
- Over-current Protection
- Prolong battery life
- Cell Balancing
- SoC and SoH calculation
- Communication with all battery components
- Data acquisition and analysis
- The high battery temperature leads to poor performance, a short lifetime, and the risk of blasting. Therefore, a BTMS is essential for all battery modules.
- The main purpose of a BTMS is to maintain the battery system in the optimum temperature range and keep uniform temperature variation in the battery modules
- Other factors for battery selection are weight, size, reliability, and the cost
- The following figure shows the most used thermal management techniques for battery module
Different Battery Cooling Methods Used in BTMS
- To adapt to EVs, BTMS must ensure features such as high performance, simplicity, low weight, reduced cost, low use of parasitic power and fast packaging, and easy maintenance
- Two types of battery cooling systems (BCS) are common which are external or internal. Many researchers and industries have been developing BCSs
- External Battery cooling systems (EBCS) are classified into several different ways
- Battery cooling can be categorized based on the method or technique.
- Liquid or gas cooling: plate type or use of mini-channel)
- Heat pipe
- Phase Change Material (PCM)
Air Cooling
- Air is easily available for cooling purposes and it is widely used in many industries. However, air is not an effective coolant because of its lower heat capacity and low thermal conductivity
- All two-wheelers use an air cooling system. It does not need any maintenance cost. The battery is placed at the bottom of the seat. During the discharging, air flows increase with an increase in the speed of the bike or scooter.
- Due to low maintenance of costs, the following type of air cooling system is popular in some automobile industries like Toyota Prius and Nissan Leaf
- The cooling is possible either by forced convection (active cooling) mode and natural convection (passive cooling) mode
- Natural convection cooling is suitable only for low-density batteries, and typically blowers/fans can be used to enhance the convection heat transfer rate
- When air is used for cooling of battery modules arranged in series, the middle and rear portion of batteries are at high temperature to the low heat capacity of air. The temperature of the battery pack near the outlet is very high and the temperature distribution is highly non-uniform. To cool effectively, we need to increase the flow rate and turbulence of airflow.
- CFD study of different battery modules can be carried out for different configurations of airflow rates and electric vehicles
Air Cooling Battery Pack in EVs
The following are popular battery pacts with air cooling in electrical vehicles
- Honda Insight
- Honda FitEV
- Hyundai IONIQ
- Nissan e-NV 200
- Nissan Leaf
- Renault Zoe
- Toyota Prius Prime
Liquid cooling of Battery
- Liquid coolants have a high convective heat removal rate due to higher density and heat capacity compared to air
- A liquid cooling system is more compact than an air system. We can save up to 40% of separate power compared to the fans required for air cooling.
- Moreover, liquid cooling can reduce the noise level. However, the complexity of the liquid cooling system and its leakage potential can be defined into direct and indirect cooling.
Indirect liquid cooling
- Water has been an effective coolant for several industrial applications But the main challenge is the short-circuited potential for direct cooling of batteries
- To avoid the short-circuit issue, indirect methods are effective to avoid electrical conduction with cells while maintaining high thermal diffusion
- The addition of electrical resistance may resist thermal diffusion. But its effects on cooling is not significant.
- Some EV manufacturers such as General Motors, and Tesla are using indirect cooling in their cars. General Motor used cold plates between each prismatic cell. The cold plates have several micro-channels for convective heat removal from batteries.
- Tesla has used wavy tubes placed between cylindrical cells. Thermally conductive and electrically insulated material is used to fill the gaps between the battery cells and cooling ducts.
- The wavy tubes may not be effective for cooling because of the small heat transfer contact area, it is safer from the mechanical and electrical point of view. All the connections of coolants are kept outside of the enclosure to avoid the leakage of coolant.
- Liquid cooling of batteries is shown below and heat transfer takes place from the cells to cooling channels
- The design strategy of thermal management system for battery modules, controller, and electric motor
Chevrolet Cooling System
- This consists of a large number of micro-channels embedded in the metal plates to carry out a coolant
- The plate is placed between two battery sets to remove the heat
Direct liquid cooling (Immersion)
- Direct cooling is also called immersion cooling, covers the entire surface of the cell and cools it uniformly
- Immersion cooling removes hot or cold spots in the cell and significantly improves the performance of the cell.
- Ideal coolant mush be dielectric with minimum viscosity and high thermal conductivity and thermal capacity
- Immersion cooling is widely used for data center servers and high-power electronics devices
- BTMS for this method is not suitable for most mass-produced EV due to high cost and safety concerns
- Immersion cooling is useful for batteries of high-performing EVs and EV racing. The fluid has a boiling point between 60 – 80 °C to prevent overheating of the cells and avoid thermal runaway. Modular type containers are used for the cells where they can be submerged in the liquid
Liquid Cooling Battery Pack in EVs
The following are popular battery pacts with liquid cooling in electrical vehicles
- Audi R8 e-Tron
- Ford Focus
- GM Chevrolet Bolt and Chevrolet Volt
- Tesla Model X, Model S, Model 3
- Toyota –iQ
- Volvo XC90 T8
Phase change Material (PCM) Cooling
- The phase change material absorbs heat significantly due to high latent heat during battery discharge
- The PCMs have been used for thermal management have a melting point in the optimum performing range of lithium cells. The cell temperature needs to remain for a long time.
- PCM as paraffin has a melting point in the range of 32-38°C which is mixed with graphite flakes to improve thermal conductivity
- The graphite flakes will also create a semi-matrix block which will contain the paraffin particles. When the paraffin melts, it stays within this matrix and the whole composition remains as the solid form
- The basic equation for phase change material (PCM): V*ρ*L = P*t, where
V = Volume of PCM in cell (m3)
ρ = Density of PCM in cell (kg/m3)
L = Latent heat of fusion of PCM (per kg)
P = Power absorbed (Watt)
t = Time of power absorption (seconds)
- The advantage of solid PCM is that they also act as shields, in case one cell enters a thermal runaway
- Classification of PCM materials for battery cooling is given below
- Select the phase change material which can maintain the temperature of cell 25-35 °C
- Multiphase modeling needs to be considered for phase change materials during the cooling of batteries
Heat Pipe
- Heat pipes have been considered versatile in many industrial applications for their efficient cooling and
thermal management - Similar to the passive cooling method of PCM, applying the heat pipes to cool or remove heat energy from the battery provides efficient
heat transfer t low power consumption - In this mechanism, heat is transferred through latent heat of vaporization (phase change) from the evaporator to the condense
- The working fluid can be passively transported back to the evaporator by capillary pressures it is developed
within a porous wick lining. Operating in this situation the heat is continuously absorbed and released.


Comparison of Cooling Methods
- Commonly used cooling methods are compared in the following table
Selection of Parameters for Optimum Performance
- Selection of battery cooling system comprises many parameters
- Operating conditions of the battery
- Load on battery
- Current rate and voltage
- Environmental conditions
- Cells
- Chemistry of battery cells like Lithium-ion
- The geometry of cells: cylindrical or rectangular
- Reactions: cyclic or non-cyclic
- Properties of cell materials
- Packing of cells
- Thermal interface
- Cooling medium
- Mode of cooling: forced convective or nature draft cooling. CFD simulations are useful to decide the rate of cooling and thermal design of the cooling circuit
- Thermal interface and fitting of battery packs
-
Concept design of battery cooling


Scope of CFD Modeling for Battery Thermal Management System
- Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) modelings have more scopes for design optimization for different cooling methods
- The following parameters we can optimize based on CFD simulations
- Geometry of cells
- Thermal interface
- Determining the heat transfer coefficient for air or water cooling
- Optimum spacing between two cells
- Desired level of turbulent level in the fluid
- Read the post on modeling of battery with governing equation and numerical models
- Selection of Power for Electric vehicles
- Shape and Size of battery
- Electro-chemistry
- Cooling Mechanism
- Charging time
- Heat Transfer Rate
The following figure shows the temperature contours of battery units with PCM materials. High temperature is observed in the middle portion of the battery unit.
- Temperature distribution over a cylindrical cell is shown below
Summary
- Several methods for battery cooling have been developed in the last two decades for the effective cooling of batteries in electric vehicles
- The air cooling system is simple but the heat removal rate is low. In contrast, immersion cooling is fast but it can lead to short circuit or corrosion issues
- Operating and environment conditions, safety, battery back, coolant, mode of cooling (forced or natural) and thermal interface are key parameters for battery thermal management systems
- CFD modeling will help for the optimum design of the battery cooling system. The data can be used for the development of an AI algorithm for battery management with a better life for cells
YouTube Videos
- Click here: CFD Modeling of battery with Heap Pipe
Reference
A.Chu, Y.Yuan, J. Zhu, X. Lu, C. Zhou, The Design and Investigation of a Cooling System for a High Power Ni-MH Battery Pack in Hybrid Electric Vehicle, (2020), 10 (1660) Applied Sciences
Dear Sir
How can we get access to the geometry of this system in the youtube video?
and Is the file of the simulation available?
Thanks
Reza Kalantar