Optimizing Thermal Management System in Electric Vehicle Battery Packs for Sustainable Transportation

Abstract

The transportation sector is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions due to large energy consumption, which is why there is a need to promote the use of electric vehicles (EVs) to mitigate overall GHG emissions. To ensure market confidence towards EVs, battery packs’ energy storage capacity and thermal management system (TMS) must be optimized. Designing a battery pack that can withstand changes in temperature is essential to the TMS. In this study, we proposed two battery pack designs with cell arrangement angles of θ=π/3 and θ=π, respectively, to investigate TMS. The CAD models were drawn, and simulations were performed using ANSYS Fluent with a mesh size of 0.005m. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was conducted to obtain the maximum and average temperature and fluid flow velocity. Our results show that the 3 parallel and 8 series (3p8s) battery pack design with a cell arrangement angle of θ=π/3 is the most feasible and can consistently perform in thermal management. This design also has 15% less volume than the cell arrangement of θ=π, allowing for more battery packs to be incorporated in the EV for a longer range of travel. Furthermore, this design can maintain the battery pack at its optimal operating temperature of 25 °C, reducing the incidence of battery runaway and ultimately lowering the EVs maintenance costs. The proposed design approach can serve as a basis for designing battery packs with optimized thermal management systems for EVs, contributing to the global effort to reduce GHG emissions.