Performance Evaluation of BTMS for Electric Vehicles using Heat Sink - A Numerical Study

Abstract

Batteries have wide applications in engineering. They are extensively used in hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and electric vehicles (EVs), where a suitable battery thermal management system (BTMS) is vital in ensuring the safety and reliability operations of batteries. The purpose of this study is to offer an air-cooling system that utilizes a novel V-type staggered arrangement of plate-fin heat sink for forced air cooling. To keep the temperature of a lithium-ion battery pack within the optimal temperature range for the safety of the battery and the consumer to prevent the battery from catching fire. The paper also presents a comparison between straight rectangular fins and V-type staggered arrangement heat sinks. The thermal management of batteries equipped with a heat sink is numerically controlled, to ensure the battery's overall performance and longevity modules/packs for electric cars. A three-dimensional heat sink model was constructed and a numerical approach was used to explore the impacts of the number of fins on the heat sink, fin spacing and angle of inclination of the fins at different inlet air mass flow rates and varied heat input. The analysis presents a computational approach and traditional heat transfer theory.