Thermal conductivity of Li-ion batteries and their electrode configurations - A novel combination of modelling and experimental approach

A bottom-up approach to calculate the overall and averaged thermal properties of the jelly roll or electrode stack of Li-ion cells in a generally applicable way is introduced. The model is based on temperature-dependent material properties and is specifically applied to a prismatic hardcase cell. The geometrical properties, such as width, depth, height, porosity, tortuosity, and the saturation with electrolyte are considered. Most of the material properties are determined by own measurements within a wide temperature range and compared with literature data. Anisotropic unit cell properties for homogenised three-dimensional thermal models and the corresponding representative thermal conductivity for one- or two-dimensional models can be calculated. A non-destructive measurement technique to determine the thermal conductivity of prismatic hardcase cell geometries and validate the described model is presented.