Numerical Analysis of Flow Type and Direction on Single Phase Immersion Cooling for Li-ion Battery Thermal Management

Thermal management of electric vehicle battery packs is vital for the batteries’ efficiency and safety. Single phase immersion cooling is an ideal cooling method for the battery thermal management due to its temperature uniformity, low cost and excellent cooling capability. This research compares the cooling performance of different flow types and flow direction for a fixed position ternary lithium battery pack at 1C, 3C and 5C discharge rate. The results show that forced flow immersion cooling can effectively reduce the maximum temperature at the battery surface, and improve the temperature uniformity, compared with static flow. Moreover, dielectric inlet and outlet are arranged in the YZ plane for the best cooling effect and uniformity for the studied battery pack. And an improved structure with baffles is proposed, which decreases the maximum surface temperature by 8°C (15.02%) and the maximum temperature difference by 15°C (54.25%) at 5C discharge rate when compared with other unimproved cases, respectively.