Automotive Innovation

https://doi.org/10.1007/s42154-020-00121-1

Thermal Management Optimization of a Lithium‑Ion Battery Module

with Graphite Sheet Fins and Liquid Cold Plates
Guohua Wang1,3 · Qing Gao1 · Yuying Yan2 · Yongzhen Wang1

Received: 25 February 2020 / Accepted: 22 October 2020

© China Society of Automotive Engineers (China SAE) 2020

Abstract
Temperature uniformity of lithium-ion batteries and maintaining the temperature within the range for efficient operation
are addressed. First, Liquid cold plates are placed on the sides of a prismatic battery, and fins made of aluminum alloy or
graphite sheets are applied between battery cells to improve the heat transfer performance. Then a simulation model is built
with 70 battery cells and 6 liquid cold plates, and the performance is analyzed according to the flow rate, liquid temperature,
and discharge rate. Finally, the results show that temperature differences are mainly caused by the liquid cold plates. The
fin surface determines the equivalent thermal conductivity of the battery. The graphite sheets have heterogeneous thermal
conductivity, which help improve temperature uniformity and reduce the temperature gradient. With lower density than the
aluminum alloy, they offer a lower gravimetric power density for the same heat transfer capacity. In addition to the equivalent
thermal conductivity, the temperature difference between the cooling liquid and battery surface is an important parameter
for temperature uniformity. Optimizing the fin thickness is found to be an effective way to reduce the temperature difference
between the liquid and battery during cooling and improve the temperature uniformity.

Keywords Thermal management · Lithium-ion battery · Liquid cold plate · Temperature uniformity

1 Introduction can be divided into five categories based on the medium: air
cooling/heating, liquid cooling/heating, phase change mate-
Powertrain electrification has been promoted as a potential rials (PCM), heat pipes, and a combination of the above
approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions [1]. Electric strategies.
vehicles are predicted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by With air cooling, the optimum temperature is maintained
up to 20% as a direct replacement of conventional vehicles, by adjusting the air volume and temperature. He et al. [5]
which leads to an additional 40% reduction if the electric- and He and Ma [6] used an air tunnel to realize active ther-
ity is generated by renewable energy [2]. Lithium-ion bat- mal management of a cylindrical battery. Zhang et al. [7]
teries serve as the power source of EVs; they offer a high coupled the direct cabin airflow and refrigerant circulation
energy/power density, long service life, and environmental for active thermal control of an EV under extreme thermal
friendliness. The battery performance is largely affected by conditions. PCM utilizes their latent heat capacity to store
temperature [3]. Various strategies have been proposed for the heat generated by the battery and control the temperature
battery thermal management to ensure that the operating [8]. Al Hallaj and Selman [9] immersed cylindrical batteries
temperature is in the optimum range [4]. These strategies in PCM to maintain temperature uniformity. When the bat-
tery temperature was dropped below the melting point of the
* Guohua Wang PCM, the heat in PCM was released to batteries. PCM can
[email protected] also be combined with other thermal management methods
for active temperature control. Ling et al. [10] used forced
1
State Key Laboratory of Automotive Simulation air convection to recover the latent heat of the PCM and con-
and Control, Jilin University, Changchun 130025, China
trol the maximum temperature. Lv and Yang [11] immersed
2
Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, batteries in PCM and coupled them with fins to improve the
Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK
cooling effectiveness. Heat pipe provides good heat transfer
3
Department of Thermal Engineering, Jilin Univeristy, performance and can remove heat from a battery quickly.
Nanling Campus, Changchun 130022, China

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 G. Wang et al.

Wang et al. [12] utilized L-shaped heat pipes to cool pris- where the channels were arranged in the interlayer of two
matic battery. Copper heat pipes filled with water were uti- plates in contact with the battery surface. The overall model
lized to deal with sub-zero temperatures. is comprised of batteries sandwiched by cooling channels
PCM and heat pipe are usually combined with other and plates.
methods of battery thermal management. Bai et al. [13] cou- For immersion cooling, batteries are immersed in a liq-
pled a water cold plate and PCM to prevent thermal runaway. uid with high electric resistance. Hirano and Tajima [27]
The cold plate was divided into two parts, one of which was immersed battery cells in a hydrofluoroether liquid with
PCM. Liang et al. [14] utilized heat pipes filled with water high electric resistance, non-flammability, and environmen-
to cool prismatic battery. tal friendliness. In addition, the boiling temperature of the
Other methods of battery thermal management can also liquid was close to the operating temperature of the battery.
be combined with each other, such as air cooling with liquid Liquid plates usually are positioned between batteries.
cooling. Wang et al. [15] combined forced gas cooling circle A representative structure is a design by GM [28] in which
with a liquid cold plate to reduce the maximum temperature the plates are thin solid fins containing micro-channels
and increase the temperature uniformity. Because liquid has to improve the heat transfer and temperature uniformity
higher thermal conductivity and heat capacity than air, liq- between pouch battery cells. Payne et al. [29] compared
uid cooling performs better than air cooling [4]. Liu et al. the performance of different microchannel structures for
[16] compared liquid cooling and PCM, and the former was thin solid fins. Kurnia [30] evaluated the heat transfer per-
found to be more effective at reducing the temperature. formance of cold plates with different internal structures
Liquid cooling can be divided into different categories including parallel, serpentine, wavy, coiled, and hybrid
depending on the coolant medium and cooling structure. micro-channels. Rao [31] designed a thermal management
The main coolants are water [17], refrigerant, and nanoflu- system for cooling prismatic lithium-ion batteries based on
ids. Mondal et al. [18] utilized nanofluids as a coolant for cold plates filled with micro-channels. How the temperature
pouch batteries. Al-Zareer et al. [19] utilized the refrigerant uniformity was affected by the number of channels and the
R134a to cool cylindrical battery. Similarly, the main cool- flow direction was evaluated. Rahman et al. [32] designed
ing structures for liquid cooling include discrete tubes or a liquid cold plate heat exchanger based on the Nissan Leaf
jackets surrounding each battery, immersing batteries in the battery pack to maintain the temperature within the range
dielectric fluid (e.g., mineral oil), and liquid plates with or for safe operation. Yeow and Teng [33] utilized aluminum
without fins on the sides of the battery [20]. cooling fins as a thermal bridge between the battery cells and
Using jackets to surround each battery can put the cool- cold plates. A single cold plate on the bottom and dual cold
ing channel fully in contact with the battery. For example, plate on both sides are compared. The results showed that
Zhao [21] utilized a wavy channel wound around cylindrical the latter configuration offered a better performance than the
battery cells. Inside the channel, the fluid flow was common former. Gepp and Filimon [34] utilized synthetic pyrolytic
in the laminar regime. This facilitated a consistent effect graphite sheets to improve the in-plane thermal conductivity
on the battery temperature and improved the temperature between a PCM and battery cells.
uniformity. Basu et al. [22] positioned two plates with a cir- The above research shows that the thermal management
cular channel on both sides of a battery module. The alu- structures for batteries mainly to maintain the operating
minum conduction elements around the cylindrical batter- temperature in the optimum range and reduce the tempera-
ies transferred heat from the batteries to the coolant, while ture difference between the battery and battery surface. The
the conduction elements acted as the separator between the gravimetric power density and volumetric power density
cells and coolant liquid. Rao [23] surrounded cylindrical should also be considered to improve the energy efficiency
batteries with an aluminum block containing micro-channels of the whole vehicle. In this study, a battery thermal man-
to increase the heat transfer efficiency. The micro-channels agement method is designed. Fins are utilized to improve
allowed liquid to take heat away from the battery, and the the heat transfer performance and temperature uniformity.
aluminum block increased the contact area with the bat- The fins are made of graphite sheets, which have a higher
tery to improve the thermal conduction. Discrete tubes are thermal conductivity and lower density than aluminum fins.
mainly used to cool prismatic or pouch batteries. Lan [24] A numerical model is built for a battery module with liquid
utilized discrete rectangular micro-channels to cool a pris- cold plates and fins, to evaluate the effects of different fin
matic battery. They studied how the number of channels and materials and thicknesses under different conditions, includ-
flow direction affected the battery thermal performance. Xu ing the discharge rate, flow rate, and liquid temperature.
[25] utilized discrete rectangular micro-channels to pre-
vent thermal runaway; some channels were connected with
U-type structures. Jiaqiang and Han [26] utilized discrete
rectangular cooling channels to cool a prismatic battery,

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Thermal Management Optimization of a Lithium-Ion Battery Module with Graphite Sheet Fins and…

2 Mathematical Model alloy with a thickness of 0.2 mm. The thermal conduction
from the battery to the cold liquid in the outer wall is neg-
The modeling process includes the physical module, theo- ligible, thus excluded from the model. Owing to symmetry,
retical analysis, and boundary conditions. the model is set to one quarter of the battery and liquid
cold plate (dotted area in Fig. 2a). For the heat transfer
2.1 Physical Module process from the battery to the cold liquid, the convec-
tive heat transfer capacity is constant when the flow in
The design of the liquid cold plate should consider the ther- the liquid cold plate did not change. Thus, the model only
mal management of the whole battery pack. The prismatic considered the conduction capacity. As shown in Fig. 2b,
lithium-ion battery is selected as the cell of the battery pack. this simplifies the thermal resistance analysis for the heat
Its height is 126 mm, length is 66 mm, and width is 17 mm. transfer between the cell and fin.
The voltage is 3.2 V/cell, and the capacity is 10 A·h. The The thermal resistance on the battery side is
circuit connection of the battery module is set to 14S5P. A
(1)
( )
RB = 𝛿∕ 𝜆B ⋅ AB
battery module consist of 70 cells, so the capacity is 50 A·h,
and the voltage is 44.8 V. For the battery pack, eight bat- where RB is the thermal resistance on the battery side; 𝛿 is
tery modules are connected in series. Thus, the battery pack the distance from the battery center to the liquid cold plate
voltage and capacity are 358.4 V and 50 A·h, respectively. surface; 𝜆B is the thermal conductivity of battery; AB is the
The liquid cold plate is designed to meet the requirements contact area between the battery and liquid cold plate.
of the batteries. The battery module contains five columns, And the thermal resistance on the fin side is
each equipped with 14 cells. The liquid cold plates are posi-
tioned on the sides of each column. Fins are positioned on (2)
( )
RF = 𝛿∕ 𝜆F ⋅ AF ⋅ RB
each battery cell surface to act as thermal bridges between
the battery and cold plate. The liquid transfers heat through where RF is the thermal resistance on the fin side; 𝜆F is the
the cold plate container to the external environment. Fig- thermal conductivity of fin; AF is the contact area between
ure 1 shows a schematic of the battery module. Each liquid the fin and liquid cold plate.
cold plate is connected in parallel to guarantee the same Thus, the thermal resistance RC from the battery center
thermal management performance for each column. The to the liquid cold plate surface is
cold plate containers of each module are also connected in
(3)
( ) ( )
RC = RB ⋅ RF ∕ RB + RF
parallel to guarantee the same thermal management perfor-
mance for the battery pack. RC can be described by

2.2 Theoretical Description

A one-dimensional heat transfer theoretical model is used

to analyze the effects of the fins on temperature uniformity. Battery
cell
Fin
The battery cell and fin are assumed as uniform conduc-
tors. The outer wall of the liquid cold plate is aluminum
F

Y B
X

Primatic battery Fins Liquid

Liquid
cold plate Fin cold plate

(a)
F =
F ∙ F
Fin

B W

B =
Cold plate container B ∙ B
Battery

Liquid cold plate (b)

Fig. 2  One-dimensional heat transfer theoretical model: a geometric

Fig. 1  Schematic of the lithium-ion battery module description and b thermal resistance analysis

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 G. Wang et al.

Fig. 3  Schematic of the calcula- Air

tion domain and meshing

Symmetry
surface Battery columns Symmetry
surface

Liquid cold plate

𝛿 Table 1  Battery heat generation Discharge rate Heat genera-

RC = (4) data
𝜆F ⋅ AF + 𝜆B ⋅ AB tion (W/m3)

The thermal conductivity 𝜆B and contact area AB of 1C 8916.7

the battery are constant. 𝛿 is also constant because of the 2C 24,966.9
fixed battery structure. To reduce the thermal resistance 3C 52,291.6
RC , the thermal conductivity 𝜆F or contact area AF should 4C 104,237.0
be increased. The thermal conductivity can be increased
by utilizing different materials. The contact area AF can
be described by AF = HF ⋅ TF , where HF is the constant Table 2  Material properties
fin height and TF is the fin thickness. Thus, RC can also be
Name Density/(kg·m−3) Specific Thermal
described by
heat/[J/ conductivity/
𝛿 (kg·K)] [W/m·K)]
RC =
𝜆F ⋅ HF ⋅ TF + 𝜆B ⋅ AB (5)
Battery 2055.2 1399 18.3 (height)
18.3 (length)
Increasing the fin thickness TF can reduce the thermal 1.1 (Width)
resistance RC. Aluminum alloy 2720 893 163
Graphite sheet 1000 850 600 (height)
2.3 Boundary Conditions 600 (length)
15 (Width)
The first step in building a numerical model is determining
the calculation domain. Because the liquid cold plates are
on the sides of the columns, each column in the module has source terms are adopted to describe the battery heat genera-
the same heat transfer performance. Thus, the calculation tion. Table 1 presents the heat generation data for different
domain of the numerical model is set to one column and two discharge rates.
liquid cold plates, as shown in Fig. 3. Because each plate Battery properties are described in terms of equivalent
cools two columns at the same time, the calculation domain parameters because the battery is comprised of several mate-
is set to half the liquid plate thickness on each column side. rials. The cold plate and fins are made of 3003 aluminum
The liquid surface in the numerical model is set as the sym- alloy, which is usually used in the radiator and intercooler of
metry plane. In actual applications, the top of the battery vehicles. Graphite sheets are usually applied to cool phone
column is occupied by an electrode. The electrode and air batteries and provide the advantage of a higher thermal con-
form a portion of the full calculation domain. To improve the ductivity than aluminum alloy. Graphite sheets can be natu-
meshing quality and reduce the calculation load, a structural ral or synthetic; the thickness of synthetic graphite can be
mesh is applied. adjusted. Thus, synthetic graphite sheets are adopted for the
Fluent is used for calculation, and the k-epsilon model numerical model. Table 2 lists the properties of the above
and enhanced wall treatment property are selected. The natu- materials.
ral convection model is adopted to account for the natural To analyze the temperature uniformity between cells,
convection caused by temperature differences. The battery sampling points should be determined for each cell. The
heat generation is considered by using experimental data to sampling points should be set to consider the temperature at
supply the discharge rate changes. For the numerical model, different positions on the battery surface. First, the number

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Thermal Management Optimization of a Lithium-Ion Battery Module with Graphite Sheet Fins and…

of cells in the numerical model is determined, as shown in To analyze the change in temperature as time pro-
Fig. 4a. Sampling points 1–15 on the surface of a battery gresses, the data are acquired at 5, 15, and 25 min. The
cell are defined along the Y-axis direction. Then, sampling surface central points of surface 1–15 are selected—com-
points PV-1 to PV-7 are defined along the Z-axis direction, pare the temperature difference among different battery
and sampling points PH-1 to PH-7 are defined along the cells, as shown in Fig. 5. The temperature difference is
X-axis direction, as shown in Fig. 4b. When there are com- insignificant, which indicates good temperature uniformity
mon sampling points among different axis directions, it is between cells with liquid cold plates and fins.
defined as PVH (e.g., PVH-4 rather than PV-4 and PH-4). The sampling points of surface 8 are selected to ana-
lyze the temperature uniformity on the battery surface.
Surface 8 is the contact surface between battery cell 7 and
3 Results and Discussion battery cell 8. Sampling points PH1–PH7 and PV1–PV7
are selected, and the results are shown in Fig. 6. The main
3.1 Analysis of Basic Working Conditions temperature difference exists in the direction vertical to the
cold plate. Figure 6a shows that the temperature curves are
The basic working conditions are set to analyze the heat mailnly featured by a crest with a high middle zone and
transfer performance. The basic working conditions includes low edge zone. The temperature decreased quickly near
the discharge rate (1C), liquid temperature (20 °C), and liq- the liquid cold plate and slowly near the central point.
uid flow (30 L/min). Aluminum alloy is adopted for the The crest weakened gradually over time, which indicates
fin with a thickness of 0.2 mm. The maximum operating that the temperature difference between points decreased
temperature of a lithium-ion battery must be below 45 °C, gradually over time. Thus, a small temperature differ-
and the temperature difference between cells and the battery ence between the battery and liquid should be ensured
surface should be below 5 °C [35]. The initial temperature to maintain temperature uniformity along the battery sur-
of the battery module is set to 45 °C, and a transient analysis face. Figure 6b shows that the temperature curves in the
is performed on the model. Z-axis direction shows small differences between sampling
points. This is because the heat transfer is the same on
both sides, and the battery module is insulated from the
outside. This differs from actual situations, where there is
a circuit board on top of the battery.
The Biot number can be used to explain the crest shown
Surface 15 in Fig. 6a and is given by
Surface 1
1 7 14 𝛿∕𝜆 𝛿h
Bi = = (6)
1∕h 𝜆
Z
X
where h is the heat transfer coefficient and should be reduced
Y and 𝜆 is the thermal conductivity of water and should be
(a) increased.

PV-1

PV-2

PV-3

PH-1 PH-3 PH-5 PH-7

PH-2 PVH-4 PH-6

PV-5

PV-6
Z
Y
PV-7 X

(b)

Fig. 4  Definitions of a cell number and b sampling points Fig. 5  Temperature curves of central points on the cell surface

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 G. Wang et al.

Fig. 6  Temperature curves of the battery surface: a X-axis direction

and b Z-axis direction

The Biot number is used to analyze the temperature dis-

tribution on the flat plate under the third type of boundary
condition. If the Biot number is very large, the temperature
curve will show a crest with high, middle, and low edges.
Thus, the heat transfer between the battery and liquid is
the same as the flat plate under the third type of boundary
conditions. To reduce the Biot number, the convective heat
transfer coefficient h should be reduced, or the thermal con-
ductivity 𝜆 should be increased. 𝛿 is the distance from the Fig. 7  Temperature curves of the battery surface under different flow
cold plate to the battery center; it is constant if the structure rates of the liquid
of the battery module remain unchanged.
The thermal conductivity of the battery module is the each cold plate channel has a small flow rate. Thus, the
equivalent thermal conductivity of the battery and fins. internal fluid flow is in the laminar flow regime. The cold
The battery has low thermal conductivity, so the fins are plate channels had a very large aspect ratio of 63.5, so the
the key to improving the equivalent thermal conductivity. Nusselt number does not change much with different flow
The convective heat transfer coefficient can be reduced by rates. Thus, the convective heat transfer coefficient also
reducing the flow rate of the liquid. As shown in Fig. 7, stay stable. The crest phenomenon does not change with
temperature curves under different flow rates of 10, 20, the flow rate. Thus, the flow rate has little influence on the
30, and 40 L/min are compared. The temperature at the temperature uniformity.
same sampling point barely changes with different flow The above analysis indicates that the temperature differ-
rates. The temperature difference between sampling points ence curve of sampling points PH1–PH7 could be used to
also remain stable with the flow rate changing. Because analyze the temperature uniformity of the battery, while the
the above flow rates are for the whole battery module, flow rate should be excluded.

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Thermal Management Optimization of a Lithium-Ion Battery Module with Graphite Sheet Fins and…

3.2 Comparison and Analysis

Based on the above analysis, the aluminum alloy and graph-

ite sheet are chosen as the fin material to improve the tem-
perature uniformity. The fin thickness is set to 0.2 mm.
The sampling points in the X-axis direction are utilized to
analyze the temperature difference under the basic working
conditions. The liquid has a temperature of 20 °C and flow
rate of 30 L/min. The discharge rate is 1C, and the initial
battery temperature is 45 °C. The results are shown in Fig. 8.
The temperature is generally lower at most points with
graphite sheets than with the aluminum alloy. This is
because the graphite sheets has higher thermal conductivity
in the X-axis direction than the aluminum alloy. Thus, using
graphite sheets for the fins increases the equivalent thermal
conductivity of the battery. Equation (6) indicates that the
Biot number can be reduced by increasing the thermal con-
ductivity, which means the crest of the temperature curve
becomes insignificant. The temperature difference on the
surface drops, and the temperature uniformity is improved.
On the same point of using the aluminum alloy and
using the graphite sheet, the temperature decrease is differ-
ent. Near the central surface, the temperature of using the
graphite sheet are lower than the temperature of using the
aluminum alloy. In the surface edge zone, the temperature
of using the graphite sheet are higher than the temperature
of using the aluminum alloy, which mainly happens in the
initial cooling stage. The reason is that the thermal conduc-
tivity of the graphite sheet in the Y direction is lower than
that of the aluminum alloy, that is only 15 W/(m·K). This
increases the thermal resistance from the battery to the fin
and increases the temperature on the battery surface. And
the thermal conductivity of the graphite sheet in the X and
Z direction is much higher than that of the aluminum alloy.
Therefore the temperature difference on the battery surface
can be downsized, decreasing the temperature by the hetero-
geneous thermal conductivity of the graphite sheet. With the
advances of the cooling process, the temperature of the edge
zone points is close to that of the liquid. The phenomenon
disappears slowly.
Fig. 8  Temperature curves of the battery surface with aluminum alloy
The temperature comparison value (TCV) is used to eval- and Graphite sheet
uate the effects of the liquid temperature and discharge rate.
The TCV is the temperature difference for the same sam-
pling point between the aluminum alloy and graphite sheets:
under different liquid temperatures. This indicates that the
TTCV = TAl − TGraphite (7) graphite sheets reduce the temperature more effectively
When the TCV is positive, the same point has a higher than the aluminum alloy. Negative values also appear dur-
temperature with the aluminum alloy than with the graph- ing the initial cooling, as shown in Fig. 9a. The negative
ite sheet. Liquid temperatures of 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, and values mainly exist at the edges and are no more than 1 °C.
40 °C are considered for a flow rate of 30 L/min, discharge This indicates that the graphite sheets lower the tempera-
rate of 1C, and initial battery temperature of 45 °C. Fig- ture and diminish the temperature difference compared to
ure 9 shows the results. Most of the TCVs are positive the aluminum alloy. The temperature difference decreases
as the liquid temperature increases.

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 G. Wang et al.

Fig. 10  TCV of the battery surface under different discharge rates

Fig. 9  TCV of the battery surface with different liquid temperatures

TCV under discharge rates of 1C, 2C, 3C, and 4C are ana-
lyzed. The liquid is set to a temperature of 20 °C and flow
During the cooling process, the difference between the rate of 30 L/min. The initial battery temperature is set to
liquid and battery temperatures gradually decreases. The 45 °C. The results are shown in Fig. 10. The TCVs are
TCV also decreases gradually. The temperature difference mostly positive; negative part only takes a small percentage.
between the two fin materials is smaller when the liquid This means that the graphite sheets lower the temperature
temperature and battery temperature are close. Thus, the more effectively than the aluminum alloy.
temperature difference between the liquid and battery is Thus, using graphite sheet fins greatly reduced the tem-
an important factor in addition to the equivalent thermal perature. The TCV increases with the rising discharge rate.
conductivity. However, the TCV is negative for points near the cold
Lithium-ion batteries operate under different conditions; plate. This means that temperature of those points is higher
this affects the discharge rate and thus the heat generation. with the graphite sheets than with the aluminum alloy. The

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Thermal Management Optimization of a Lithium-Ion Battery Module with Graphite Sheet Fins and…

temperature averaging effect produced by a small number

of negative TCVs at the edge is superior to that with the
aluminum alloy. Thus, the graphite sheet fins provide better
temperature uniformity than aluminum alloy fins.
The above analysis shows that graphite sheet fins can bet-
ter improve the temperature uniformity of the battery surface
compared to aluminum alloy fins with the same thickness.
The aluminum alloy is about 2.7 times denser than graphite
sheets, so using the latter can reduce the gravimetric density
under the same heat transfer capacity.
To enhance the heat transfer performance, the thickness
of the fin can be increased without increasing the gravimet-
ric density. The fin thickness can also be reduced to decrease
the gravimetric density of the battery. Different fin thick-
nesses are selected to evaluate their effect on the tempera-
ture: 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, and 0.6 mm. The discharge
rate is 1C, and the initial battery temperature is 45 °C. The
liquid temperature is 20 °C, and the liquid flow rate is 30 L/
min. Figure 11 shows the temperature curves of the battery
surface over time.
Increasing the fin thickness effectively lower the tem-
perature in the initial cooling stage, but show lower effect
at later stage. However, increasing the thickness does affect
the temperature uniformity. Thus, increasing the fin thick-
ness can enhance the heat transfer and rapidly reduce the
battery surface temperature when the difference between the
liquid and battery temperatures is great. Otherwise, increas-
ing the thickness has little effect on the battery surface tem-
perature but still affects the temperature uniformity of the
battery. Thus, thermal management design should consider
the fin thickness and liquid temperature to have a balanced
improvement of the temperature uniformity and gravimetric
density.

4 Conclusions

The liquid cold plates with fins are mounted on both sides
of a prismatic lithium-ion battery. A module with 70 battery Fig. 11  Temperature of the battery surface under different Fin thick-
nesses
cells is built for simulation and analysis. Aluminum alloy
and graphite sheets are compared as fin materials. Differ-
ent working conditions are considered, including the flow
rate, liquid temperature, and discharge rate. The initial tem- temperature uniformity and lower the battery tempera-
perature of the battery is set to 45 °C. Different thickness ture.
of the graphite sheets are adopted to analyze their effect on 2. To improve the thermal conductivity, the graphite sheet
the temperature uniformity and temperature reduction. The is compared with the aluminum alloy on the heat transfer
results are as follows: performance in liquid temperatures and discharge rates.
The heterogeneous thermal conductivity of the graphite
1. The temperature difference is mainly affected by the liq- sheets improves the temperature uniformity on the bat-
uid cold plates. Theoretical analysis and the simulation tery surface and quickly reduces battery temperature.
results show that the liquid flow rate has a small effect 3. The temperature difference between the liquid and the
on the temperature difference of the battery surface. battery and the equivalent thermal conductivity are
Improving the thermal conductivity can improve the important factors for the temperature uniformity.

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 G. Wang et al.

4. Under the same heat transfer capacity, graphite sheets 12. Wang, Q., Jiang, B., Xue, Q., Sun, H., Li, B., Zou, H., Yan, Y.:
have lower gravimetric density compared to the alu- Experimental investigation on EV battery cooling and heating
by heat pipes. Appl. Therm. Eng. 88, 54–60 (2015)
minum alloy. Increasing the fin thickness enhances the 13. Bai, F., Chen, M., Song, W., Feng, Z., Li, Y., Ding, Y.: Thermal
heat transfer performance and improves the temperature management performances of PCM/water cooling-plate using
uniformity when the difference between the liquid and for lithium-ion battery module based on non-uniform internal
battery temperatures is significant. Otherwise, increas- heat source. Appl. Therm. Eng. 126, 17–27 (2017)
14. Liang, J., Gan, Y., Li, Y.: Investigation on the thermal perfor-
ing the fin thickness has little effect on lowering the bat- mance of a battery thermal management system using heat pipe
tery surface temperature but still affects the temperature under different ambient temperatures. Energy Convers. Manage.
uniformity. 155, 1–9 (2018)
15. Wang, S., Li, Y., Li, Y.Z., Mao, Y., Zhang, Y., Guo, W., Zhong,
M.: A forced gas cooling circle packaging with liquid cool-
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Acknowledgements The work is supported by Double Ten “Sci- space environment. Appl. Therm. Eng. 123, 929–939 (2017)
ence & Technology Innovation Project of Jilin Province of China” 16. Liu, R., Chen, J., Xun, J., Jiao, K., Du, Q.: Numerical investiga-
NO.17SS022. The work is also supported by the China Scholarship tion of thermal behaviors in lithium-ion battery stack discharge.
Council (CSC) for the first author’s scholarship. Appl. Energy 132, 288–297 (2014)
17. Zhang, T., Gao, C.: Status and development of electric vehicle
Compliance with Ethical Standards integrated thermal management from BTM to HVAC. Appl.
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Conflict of Interest On behalf of all the authors, the corresponding au- 18. Mondal, B., Lopez, C.F., Mukherjee, P.P.: Exploring the efficacy
thor states that there is no conflict of interest. of nanofluids for lithium-ion battery thermal management. Int.
J. Heat Mass Transf. 112, 779–794 (2017)
19. Al-Zareer, M., Dincer, I., Rosen, M.A.: Heat and mass transfer
modeling and assessment of a new battery cooling system. Int.
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