Battery Tab Cooling in Traction Battery Modules using Thermally Conductive Plastics

Tab cooling is a promising approach to cool lithium-ion batteries due to the achievable uniform cell temperatures. However, previous research focused on investigations on cell level and disregarded the effects occurring in a module with multiple cells. Here, a novel design using thermally conductive plastics is shown to realize a tab cooling in a battery module. Simulations and experiments confirm the advantage of the uniform cell temperatures, but reveal new challenges as despite a symmetric cooling temperature differences between the cells arise. Also, the need for thermally optimized tabs to achieve an efficient cooling is proven in the module context.