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Electrification on transportation and electricity generation via renewable sources play a vital role to diminish the effects of energy usage on the environment. Transition from the conventional fuels to renewables for transportation and electricity generation demands the storage of electricity in great capacities with desired power densities and relatively high C-rate values. Yet, thermal and electrical characteristics vary greatly depending on the chemistry and structure of battery cells. At this point, lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are more suitable in most applications due to their superiorities such as long lifetime, high recyclability, and capacities. However, exothermic electrochemical reactions yield temperature to increase suddenly which affects the degradation in cells, ageing, and electrochemical reaction kinetics. Therefore, strict temperature control increases battery lifetime and eliminates undesired situations such as layer degradation and thermal runaway. In the literature, there are many distinct battery thermal management strategies to effectively control battery cell temperatures. These strategies vary based on the geometrical form, size, capacity, and chemistry of the battery cells. Here, we focus on proposed battery thermal management strategies and current applications in the electric vehicle (EV) industry. In this review, various battery thermal management strategies are documented and compared in detail with respect to geometry, thermal uniformity, coolant type and heat transfer methodology for Li-ion and post-lithium batteries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electric vehicles play an integral role in eliminating pollution related to transportation, especially if the electricity is generated via renewable sources. However, storing electricity onboard requires many battery cells. If the temperature of the cells is not strictly regulated, their capacity decreases in time, and they may burn or explode due to thermal runaway. Battery thermal management systems emerged for safe operations by keeping the battery cell temperatures under limit values. However, the current solutions do not yield uniform temperature distribution for all the cells in a pack. Here, we document that constant temperature distribution can be achieved with uniform coolant distribution to the channels located between batteries. The design process of the developed battery pack begins with a design used in current packs. Later, how the shape of the distributor channel affects flow uniformity is documented. Then, the design complexity was increased to satisfy the flow uniformity condition, which is essential for temperature uniformity. The design was altered based on a constructal design methodology with an iterative exhaustive search approach. The uncovered constructal design yields a uniform coolant distribution with a maximum of 0.81% flow rate deviation along channels. The developed design is palpable and easy to manufacture relative to the tapered manifold designs. The results also document that the peak temperature difference between the cells decreases from a maximum of 12 K to 0.4 K. Furthermore, homogenous distribution of air is one of the limiting factors of the development of metal–air batteries. This paper also documents how air can be distributed uniformly to metal–air battery cells in a battery pack. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study can be considered as a helpful reference for whom endeavor to boost the computation efficiency of the PCM melting process. Researchers sacrifice accuracy to decrease computation time since computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solutions of PCM melting processes require comparatively very long time, i.e., from hours to days or weeks, depending on the system geometry. The present study compares the approaches recommended in the literature in terms of their influence on computation time reduction and accuracy. A horizontally finned tube LHTES unit is modeled in 2-D space using ANSYS Fluent, the most common commercial CFD software for the considered problem in the literature. The outcomes obtained from the attempts to boost the computation efficiency are as follows: adaptive time step size approach causes 72% enhancement in computation time (from 90 hours to 25 hours), frozen flux algorithm and constant thermophysical properties have almost no influence on computation time. Even though low convergence criteria and neglecting natural convection reduces computation time drastically, the errors in accuracy are not in acceptable level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trend of transition from fossil fuel to electrification in transportation is a result of no carbon emission produced by electric vehicles (EVs) during their daily operations. Furthermore, the global carbon footprint of EVs can be minimized if the electricity is generated from renewable sources such as wind and solar. On the other hand, there are some drawbacks of these vehicles such as charging time being very long and the mileage range of vehicles not at the desired level. Battery cells are being charged at relatively high C‐rates to eliminate these problems, yet high current rates accelerate the aging of batteries and capacity losses due to the generated heat. Generated heat causes overheating, and excess temperature triggers degradation and thermal runaway risks. This paper uncovers how the battery pack temperature uniformity and strict thermal control can be achieved with heat transfer enhancement by conduction (cold plates) and convection (vascular channels). We aimed to reduce the energy consumption of the EV battery pack system while increasing the thermal performance. The impact of the thermal contact resistance is also considered for many realistic scenarios. The results indicate that an integrated system with cold plates and vascular channels satisfies the temperature uniformity requirement (over 81%) with comparatively less pumping power (∼72%) of advanced electric vehicles for relatively high C‐rates. Furthermore, findings show the temperature level can increase up to 4°C as thermal contact resistance increases. The proposed cooling technique, which has low cost, easy application, and lower energy consumption superiorities, can be implemented in palpable EV battery packs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here, we show that the peak temperature on a non-uniformly heated domain can be decreased by embedding a high-conductivity insert in it. The trunk of the high-conductivity insert is in contact with a heat sink. The heat is generated non-uniformly throughout the domain or concentrated in a square spot of length scale 0.1 L0, where L0 is the length scale of the non-uniformly heated domain. Peak and average temperatures are affected by the volume fraction of the high-conductivity material and by the shape of the high-conductivity pathways. This paper uncovers how varying the shape of the symmetric and asymmetric high-conductivity trees affects the overall thermal conductance of the heat generating domain. The tree-shaped high-conductivity inserts tend to grow toward where the heat generation is concentrated in order to minimize the peak temperature, i.e., in order to minimize the resistances to the heat flow. This behaviour of high-conductivity trees is alike with the root growth of the plants and trees. They also tend to grow towards sunlight, and their roots tend to grow towards water and nutrients. This paper uncovers the similarity between biological trees and high-conductivity trees, which is that trees should grow asymmetrically when the boundary conditions are non-uniform. We show here even though all the trees have the same objectives (minimum flow resistance), their shape should not be the same because of the variation in boundary conditions. To sum up, this paper shows that there is a high-conductivity tree design corresponding to minimum peak temperature with fixed constraints and conditions. This result is in accord with the constructal law which states that there should be an optimal design for a given set of conditions and constraints, and this design should be morphed in order to ensure minimum flow resistances as conditions and constraints change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heat transfer and flow characteristic in microchannel heat sinks (MCHS) are extensively studied in the literature due to high heat transfer rate capability by increased heat transfer surface area relative to the macroscale heat sinks. However, heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics in MCHS differ from conventional ones because of the scaling effects. This review summarizes the studies that are mainly based on heat transfer and fluid flow characteristic in MCHS. There is no consistency among the published results; however, everyone agrees on that there is no new physical phenomenon in microscale that does not exist at macroscale. Only difference between them is that the effect of some physical phenomena such as viscous dissipation, axial heat conduction, entrance effect, rarefaction, and so forth, is negligibly small at macroscale, whereas it is not at microscale. The effect of these physical phenomena on the heat transfer and flow characteristics becomes significant with respect to specified conditions such as Reynolds number, Peclet number, hydraulic diameter, and heat transfer boundary conditions. Here, the literature was reviewed to document when these physical phenomena become significant and insignificant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here, we show how the cooling performance of a volumetrically heated solid can be increased by embedding highconductivity tree-shaped designs in it. The volume fraction occupied by the high-conductivity material is fixed. Embedding the high-conductivity material as trees in the solid decreases the maximum temperature more than three times compared with distributing the high-conductivity material uniformly throughout the solid. The maximum temperature decreases as the number of the bifurcation levels and the volume fraction of the highly conductive material increase. The thermal resistance of the cube is the lowest when the diameter ratio of the mother and daughter branches at each pairing junction is 2. Changing from T-shaped to Y-shaped designs and from two-dimensional to three-dimensional designs decrease the maximum and the volume averaged temperatures. The peak temperature is the lowest in three-dimensional and Y-shaped designs. This paper shows that the peak temperature of the heated solid can be decreased by only varying the shape of the high-conductivity tree embedded in it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]