In this work, a composite cooling system including composite phase change material(CPCM) and liquid cooling is designed for battery pack, and the effects of coolant flow rate, battery spacing, thermal conductivity of CPCM, channel number of cooling plate on the safety performance of battery pack under thermal runaway propagation are studied. The results reveal that: (1)Coolant flow rate increase mainly delays the thermal runaway propagation on both sides of cooling plate. When the coolant flow rate is 0.029 m/s, the thermal runaway propagation time through the cooling plate is 32.9s, which is extended by 1.84 times than that at 0.009 m/s (2)Battery spacing increase delays thermal runaway propagation and changes the propagation path. (3)Thermal conductivity reduction of CPCM can significantly delay thermal runaway propagation, because the heat is concentrated in the periphery of the battery and is hard to transfer though CPCM and cooling plate. (4)Compared with other influence factors, channel number of cooling plate has less influence on the overall thermal runaway propagation time. When the channel number is between 5 and 1, the total thermal runaway time changes within 25.5s–27s. The conclusions in this work are helpful to design a safer thermal management system for lithium-ion battery packs. • A novel composite cooling strategy is designed for cylindrical battery pack. • Effects of different factors on the thermal safety of the battery pack are studied. • Thermal runaway propagation path and time of the battery pack are analyzed and obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]