Methodology development to study the effect of solar load on an electric vehicle battery pack

In recent times, electric vehicles are rising to popularity in many of the countries as there are zero tailpipe emissions. It is known that battery needs to be operated at defined operating temperature range for maximum performance and hence battery thermal management plays a vital role. In a tropical country like India, the major source of heat is the ambient, which in general remains hot (>35°C) throughout the year, summer being exceptionally hot (>45°C) at few locations. To mitigate thermal issues or to design a thermal management strategy, it becomes really important to understand the effect of heat load due to direct sun exposure of electric vehicle battery packs. To evaluate the effects, experiments are done. Further, a methodology is developed to model this solar heating on electric vehicles using StarCCM+ simulation software.