Efficient Cooling System for Lithium-Ion Battery Cells by Using Different Concentrations of Nanoparticles of SiO2-Water: A Numerical Investigation

Abstract

The performance, safety, and cycle life of lithium-ion batteries (LiBs) are all known to be greatly influenced by temperature. In this work, an innovative cooling system is employed with a Reynolds number range of 15,000 to 30,000 to minimize the temperature of LiB cells. The continuity, momentum, and energy equations are solved using the Finite Volume Method (FVM). The computational fluid dynamics software ANSYS Fluent is applied to calculate the flow and temperature fields and to analyze the thermal management system for 52 LiB cells. The arrangement of batteries leads to symmetrical flow and temperature distribution occurring in the upper and lower halves of the battery pack. The impacts of SiO2 distributed in a base fluid (water) are investigated. The results show that SiO2 nanofluid with the highest volume fractions of 5% has the lowest average temperature values at all investigated Reynolds numbers. The innovative cooling system highlights the enhancement of the cooling process by increasing the SiO2 concentrations, leading to the recommendation of the concentration of 5 vol% due to better thermal diffusion resulting from the enhanced effective thermal conductivity. The flow turbulence is increased by increasing the Reynolds number, which significantly enhances the heat transfer process. It is shown that increasing the Re from 15,000 to 22,500 and 30,000 causes increases in the Nu value of roughly 32% and 65%, respectively.