Design and Simulation of Passive Thermal Management System for Lithium-Ion Battery Packs on an Unmanned Ground Vehicle

Abstract

The transient thermal response of a 15-cell, 48 V, lithium-ion battery pack for an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) was simulated using ANSYS fluent. Heat generation rates and specific heat capacity of a single cell were experimentally measured and used as input to the thermal model. A heat generation load was applied to each battery, and natural convection film boundary conditions were applied to the exterior of the enclosure. The buoyancy-driven natural convection inside the enclosure was modeled along with the radiation heat transfer between internal components. The maximum temperature of the batteries reached 65.6 °C after 630 s of usage at a simulated peak power draw of 3600 W or roughly 85 A. This exceeds the manufacturer's maximum recommended operating temperature of 60 °C. We present a redesign of the pack that incorporates a passive thermal management system consisting of a composite expanded graphite (EG) matrix infiltrated with a phase-changing paraffin wax. The redesigned battery pack was similarly modeled, showing a decrease in the maximum temperature to 50.3 °C after 630 s at the same power draw. The proposed passive thermal management system kept the batteries within their recommended operating temperature range.