Session: K6-06: HEAT TRANSFER IN ENERGY SYSTEM - COMPONENTS I

Paper Number: 130983

130983 - Investigation of Liquid Cooling for Lithium-Based Batteries in Phase Change Materials Using Metal Foams: a Numerical Approach 

Abstract: 

Electric cars, in addition to representing an ecological solution for the serious problems of climate pollution due to the use of fossil fuels, can also represent a turning point in terms of renewal for the world economy with a product that in a short future will become a standard in all the advanced economies of the globe.

One of the main problems of electric cars is given by the thermal control of their batteries, since, below and above a certain temperature range and also with the use of air conditioning, they abruptly decrease the vehicle autonomy.

In this study, an attempt is made to control both thermal aspects by trying to thermally isolate the battery from the vehicle's external climate and by trying to control the temperature peaks due to the operation of the battery itself. A three-dimensional model is considered to investigate numerically the thermal control of a cylindrical lithium polymer based battery as a single module. The battery has a height of 65 mm and a diameter equal to 18.4 mm and its capacity is equal to 3000 mAh. The thermal control is realized by means of a phase change material, PCM (paraffin), in metal foam, with a single module where a cylindrical battery is placed inside in the center of a parallelepipedal and cooled by a convective flow by means tubes. The tubes are assumed at assigned temperature and the surface of the module is considered adiabatic. The governing equations are solved by finite volume method using the commercial code Ansys-Fluent. Different cases are simulated for two different PCMs at C-rate equal to 0.25, 0.5 and 1.0. The results are given in terms of temperature and liquid fraction fields, surface temperature profiles as a function of time and temperature distributions along the external surface of battery.

Presenting Author: Aanandsundar Arumugam Università degli Studi della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”

Presenting Author Biography: PhD Student Department of Engineering, Università degli Studi della Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli".

Authors:

Aanandsundar Arumugam Università degli Studi della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”
Bernardo Buonomo Università degli Studi della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”
Oronzio Manca Università degli Studi della Campania