Thermal characteristics of power battery module with composite phase change material and external liquid cooling.

• Battery thermal management based on the liquid cooling with impregnated composite PCM is investigated. • Differential melting in CPCM leads to large battery temperature difference at module level. • Double-sided cooling reduced both maximum battery temperature and temperature difference and prolonged the working time as against single-sided cooling. • Better agreement with experiments is found for the present numerical analysis by incorporating the interfacial gaps. Thermal management of lithium-ion batteries has been a crucial task in the development of battery based electric vehicles. In this paper, the thermal performances of the composite phase change material (CPCM) made of paraffin and high porosity copper foam for the battery modules are presented by means of experiments and numerical simulation. The test battery module consisting of 3 × 5 cylindrical batteries were immersed in the paraffin/copper foam composite enclosed in the aluminum housing. Experiments were conducted for external single-sided liquid cooling and double-sided liquid cooling, in comparison with the natural convection case. The thermal characteristics of the battery module under natural convection conditions were first examined. In order to further reduce the temperature rise, the liquid cooling on the single side and double sides of the battery housing was implemented and tested. It is found that the double-sided liquid cooling has the better temperature control performance with the lowest battery temperature within acceptable temperature difference. Moreover, a two-dimensional numerical model for the battery module with CPCM was also established by taking into account the interfacial gaps. The numerical simulation results were in better agreement with the experimental observations, as against the conventional one-temperature model. Image, graphical abstract [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]