Cooling performance of thermal management system for lithium-ion batteries using two types of cold plate: Experiment and MATLAB/Simulink-Simscape simulation

The thermal management system for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) was investigated to improve the operating performance of LIBs. Experiments with two battery packs that integrate two different types of cold plates, Type I and Type II, were conducted to compare the cooling efficiencies of the battery thermal management system (BTMS). The interior heat generation of the battery modules was analyzed. Because of safety concerns, the battery pack in the experiment was replaced by heaters. A comparative experiment with a cell and heater was conducted under the same parameter conditions to compare the heating properties. The MATLAB/Simulink - Simscape toolbox (version R2020b) was used to simulate the thermal characteristics of a cylindrical cell and a battery pack. The thermal resistance was analyzed to investigate the cooling efficiency of the cold plates. As the results, the heater produced 10% higher temperature than the Li-ion cell under same conditions. In Type I, the thermal resistance decreased with an increase in the C-rates, whereas in Type II, it remained constant at 0.001. The simulation results were verified accurately through comparison with experimental results. Both experimental and simulation results show cold plate Type II has outstanding cooling performance than Type I.