Fan-pad evaporative battery cooling for hybrid electric vehicle thermal management

The major factor affecting high power battery performance in hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) is temperature rise during operations. Battery management systems aims to operate HEV battery between 20°C and 45°C whilst at the same time maintaining the battery sate of charge (SOC) at appropriate levels. A novel battery cooling method, inspired from the building industry, based in fan-pad evaporative cooling is proposed. This paper describes the fan-pad evaporative cooling mathematical model for automotive battery applications. It proposes a two directional-forced air evaporative cooling to facilitate uniform cells cooling. Fans operate at negligible or zero power when the vehicle is in motion as the system exploits the airflow created by vehicle speed to feed into the cooling pad. This paper compares, using simulation, evaporative fan-pad cooling with aircooling and discusses the relative merits of the approach compared to existing battery cooling systems.