Research PaperStructural optimization of lithium-ion battery pack with forced air cooling system

- Single factor analysis is performed for the heat dissipation performance.
- CFD simulation results are validated by comparing with the experimental results.
- Orthogonal design method is used to optimize the structure of the battery pack.

The forced air cooling system is of great significance in the battery thermal management system because of its simple structure and low cost. The influences of three factors (the air-inlet angle, the air-outlet angle and the width of the air flow channel between battery cells) on the heat dissipation of a Lithium-ion battery pack are researched by experiments and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. Then the three structure parameters are optimized by using single factor analysis and orthogonal test method. It is shown that the layout of the air flow channels has great impacts on the maximum temperature and the temperature difference. The best cooling performance is obtained under the condition of 2.5° air-inlet angle, 2.5° air-outlet angle and equal channels width. With the optimization method, the maximum temperature and the temperature difference are decreased by 12.82% and 29.72% respectively. Therefore, the presented approach in this paper is able to optimize the battery thermal management system for electric vehicles.