NUMERICAL ANALYSES OF THERMAL PERFORMANCES OF THE CONVENTIONAL AND THE IMMERSION COOLING METHODS FOR LITHIUM-ION BATTERY PACKS

Abstract

The transition from fossil fuel vehicles to electric has increased rapidly in recent years to reduce carbon emissions and use accessible energy. The main obstacles to the widespread use of electric vehicles are limited battery capacities, long charging times, thermal management in sudden charge and discharge situations and thermal runaway risks. The adverse effects of non-homogeneous temperature distribution on electrically driven vehicles have demonstrated the necessity of a thermal management system. The most used thermal management systems in practice are air-cooled, cooling plate (pipe) systems and direct dielectric cooling systems, which have recently become widespread. This study focused on the thermal analyses of the different thermal cooling methods. All analyses have been conducted using Ansys Fluent software. It has been observed that the dielectric direct cooling method, which is the newest method, has a performance value of 12% better than other systems at 1C normal operating conditions.