Fluent Engineering Solutions: CFD Specialists

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Battery Cooling in EV

Looking at the current scenario to meet the expectations of the consumer, electric vehicles (EVs) must have performance and battery reliability comparable to that of a modern combustion engine vehicle.
One of the current limitations is in the thermal control of the battery, if the battery operates at low temperature it reduces the charged ion mobility and hence the power output due to slow down of electro-chemical reactions, while elevated temperature accelerates charge ion mobility which can lead to corrosion and reduce the overall battery life.

Battery Cell in Fluent
It is important that the temperature within a battery cell is uniform. Ununiformed distribution will cause the electrochemical reactions to proceed at different rates in different regions of the cell, thereby leading to incomplete energy utilization, and inefficient management of the battery life. Any power consumed for the regulation of temperature reduces the power available to the primary vehicle functions, and so the efficient operation of a thermal management system is also desirable.
Computational Fluid Dynamics Thermal Cooling
In the cold environment region battery cooling may be not required but for prolonged operation cooling will certainly be required. For batteries of low energy density, use of air or passive cooling is effective choice but for higher energy density batteries, an active liquid cooled system gives the most effective and efficient thermal management.
Computational Fluid Dynamics
In order to provide enough energy, an EV battery can be expected to occupy a large volume. For the most efficient use of space, a stack of rectangular laminate battery cells is often preferred with cooling systems. The coolant or forces air absorbs heat from the cells and carries it away to a heat exchanger external to the battery.

The typical rectangular battery cooling system is as shown, the cooling air is move away from the cell arrangement and refuse to flow through small channel available between battery cells. This is due to improper utilisation of available space. The huge opening on the side the rectangular shape allows to bypass cooling air quickly with lowest resistance. Hence heat from the cells is not efficiently convicted which results into formation of hot spot over battery surfaces.

The optimal spacing and providing reasonable resistance by means of vertical plate in flow path, allowing more channels in the battery cells space. Overall, a cooling effect is efficiently increase by means of temperature uniformity but power consumption (in terms of the pressure drop) are defined by CFD analysis.

Contact us for your optimal battery cooling performance.