Numerical study of thermal management of pouch lithium-ion battery based on composite liquid-cooled phase change materials with honeycomb structure

To address the problem of temperature rise and temperature difference of lithium-ion pouch battery modules, this paper proposes a battery thermal management system (BTMS) with honeycomb structure of a new hybrid liquid and phase change material (PCM). The open-circuit voltage (OCV), internal resistance, open-circuit voltage temperature derivative, specific heat capacity and thermal conductivity of the battery are obtained from the experiments. Comparing the three BTMSs of air cooling, PCM cooling and hybrid cooling, it is found that the cell temperature exceeds the operating temperature using the air cooling scheme, while the hybrid cooling of PCM cooling and hybrid cooling scheme can effectively control the maximum temperature of the cell. A hybrid cooling (LPCM) scheme is used to study the liquid flow rate and inlet temperature as variables. When the coolant flow rate is 0.06 m/s and the inlet temperature is 36 °C, the maximum temperature and maximum temperature difference of the cell are 42.3 °C and 4.3 °C, respectively, and the LPCM has the best thermal management performance. The results show that the BTMS numerical model can provide a reference for the design of PCM schemes using hybrid liquid cooling. •The batteries used for the experiments and simulations were based on pouch lithium-ion batteries for the study.•The thermal management scheme using a combination of liquid cooling and phase change materials.•The honeycomb fin structure has more heat exchange area, which increases the heat exchange power and efficiency.•Aluminum shell and honeycomb fins combine light weight and mechanical performance.•A fast cooling plate is designed in a module way.