Advances in flow pattern design of liquid-cooled components for battery thermal management system

Abstract

The liquid-cooled component is a key part of liquid-cooled thermal management system, which controls the temperature of batteries to ensure safety and high performance of batteries. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the advances in flow pattern design of liquid-cooled components. Two aspects including liquid cooling plates, a thin metal structure having one or more coolant channels passing through its interior; liquid cooling channels, channel structures connecting batteries to coolants in the form of simple straight tubes, curved tubes, or complex three-dimensional channel networks are systematically reviewed. The paper first discussed cooling plates: research indicates that adjusting the liquid cooling plate structure, the number of flow channels, flow direction, and size can effectively control the battery temperature. Research on liquid cooling channels is equally important, including optimization of the contact surface for reduced the thermal resistance, design of microchannel for enhanced heat transfer capabilities and adjusting channel numbers as well as inlet flow velocity for enhanced cooling performance. Therefore, through the careful design and optimization of cooling plates and channels, the performance of the battery thermal management system can be significantly improved to ensure the stability and reliability of the battery under various operating conditions, thereby promoting the development of electric vehicle technology.