Modern day electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles which run completely/partially on electric power typically use lithium polymer cells to build the battery module. The high energy density of the lithium polymer cells makes them desirable compared to others. These battery modules get heated up as high currents pass through the cells, which are arranged in stacks. Thermal management of cells is one of the main factors to be considered in the battery module design. A properly designed thermal management system is crucial to prevent overheating and uneven heating across a large battery module of lithium polymer cells, which can lead to degradation, mismatch in cell capacity and thermal runaway. A Three dimensional transient thermal analysis of cell stacks is performed in ANSYS workbench under the required operating conditions and a temperature profile of each and every point is obtained. An experimental setup is designed and built to simulate both the thermal and electrical conditions of the battery module in order to determine the thermal performance of the cell stacks. The simulation results are validated with the experimentally obtained results.
Fault analysis in battery module design for electric and hybrid vehicles
