Heat Transfer Capacity of Composite Cooling System for Automobile Lithium-Ion Battery with Heat Pipe and Phase Change Materials

Combining high thermal conductivity and high latent heat of phase change Materials (PCM) with heat pipe that has strong ability of heat transfer. A three-dimensional transient heat-transfer model was set up to simulate the temperature distribution in the lithium-ion battery under different conditions of heat generation rate and different ambient temperature. The study revealed that composite cooling system keep the battery temperature below 40.2°C on average working condition, the highest temperature was not exceed 48.7°C even under stressful conditions. However, use PCM without heat pipe as cooling system, the temperature was 2~6°C higher than composite cooling system at the same condition. The composite cooling system was superior to PCM cooling system, especially in high heat generation rate and high ambient temperature.