Liquid-based battery thermal management system performance improvement with intersected serpentine channels

A thermal management system that could maintain the temperature within the proper range is essential for lithium-ion batteries. Apart from the thermal performance, the pumping power needs to be reduced to increase the system efficiency. In this study, intersecting channels were integrated into the conventional serpentine channel to improve the performance of liquid-based thermal management system for prismatic lithium-ion batteries. Numerical results showed that adding intersecting channels could significantly decrease the required pumping power, thereby enhancing the thermal performance at given power cost. Compared to straight design, V-shape intersecting channel design performs better in terms of the thermal performance. Besides, the effects of influencing factors including the intersecting number, intersecting width and on the thermal characteristics of V-shape intersecting serpentine channel were investigated. Results demonstrated that all the structural parameters had an optimum value within the studied range. The best thermal performance subject to the power cost was achieved with the intersecting number of 7, width of 2.0 mm and angle of 45°. The gradient intersecting spacings was developed to further alleviate the temperature imbalance within the battery. It is seen that the thermal performance was improved with the channel spacing gradient, especially when the spacing gradient was 2 mm.