A pseudo 3D electrochemical-thermal modeling and analysis of a lithium-ion battery for electric vehicle thermal management applications

This paper presents an improved pseudo 3D coupled electrochemical-thermal model that can be implemented into active or passive battery thermal management systems (BTMS). The model features more accurate estimate of battery temperature distribution under various discharge rates compared with lumped or empirical models. In this work, a simplified electrochemical model is solved in 1D to make the coupled model streamlined enough to be embedded into BTMS. The Ohmic heat generation and heat conduction in the cells are evaluated in 3D to investigate the non-uniform temperature distribution during the battery operation. The validity of electrical and thermal aspects of the modeling procedure is demonstrated experimentally for a 4Ah NCA prismatic cell. The predicted battery surface temperature distribution and voltage profile are in agreement with infrared imaging and the measured voltage variation. The proposed model reduces the required time for battery modeling which enables the designers to simultaneously simulate the active or passive BTMS in an affordable computational time. The effects of design parameters such as electrode format, active material thickness and tab location on the battery thermal behavior can be evaluated under various cooling scenarios.