Effect analysis on performance improvement of battery thermal management in cold weather

•The numerical analysis of the temperature control system for the lithium-ion batteries is investigated.•The temperature difference between the batteries is enhanced by 50% using the reverse flow method.•Increasing the entry flow rate does not significantly affect the batteries’ placement time.•Increasing the temperature of the entry fluid decreases the time of achieving the batteries’ temperature to the suitable operational condition.•Increasing the number of channels leads to a significant improvement in battery performance. Temperature management systems are used for batteries to control the temperature due to the high influence of temperature on the performance of the batteries. The main purpose of this study is to manage the temperature of the battery in cold weather. According to the results, the heat due to the internal resistance of the battery is not enough to expose the battery to the ideal temperature in very cold conditions (253.15 K). As the discharge rate rises to 0.1 C, the battery temperature rises, but the effect is almost negligible. In this research, a three-dimensional finite volume method is established in to bring the temperature of batteries closer to the optimal range in cold weather conditions. For this aim a bottom plate with 15 embedded flow ducts in each battery set has been designed and modeled. Results show that by increasing the mass flow rate of the inlet fluid to 0.525 kg/s and increasing its temperature to 333.15 K, the temperature of the batteries will increase significantly but it also increases the pressure drop noticeably up to 524 Pa. Also, the effect of increasing the inlet temperature on the temperature of the batteries was greater than the effect of increasing the flow rate. Increasing the number of channels from 7 to 15 channels and entering the fluid with the current flow arrangement with the same flow rate, has led to an improvement of the temperature distribution in the batteries by up to 50%. By increasing the temperature of the fluid from 313.15 K to 333.15 K at a constant flow, the batteries can reach the ideal temperature up to twice as fast. Moreover, at low mass flow rates temperature ratio, (TR) has higher values at early moments than high mass flow rates with the maximum deference value of 4%.