A Computationally-Effective Thermal Model for Spirally Wound Nickel-Metal Hydride Batteries

A new two-dimensional analytical model is developed to investigate the transient thermal behavior of spirally wound batteries. The proposed model is used to analyze the thermal response of a 8 ampere-hour cylindrical nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) battery under fast-charging processes with overcharging periods. Based on the method of integral transformation, a series-form solution for the temperature field in cylindrical batteries is obtained that takes account for transient heat generation, orthotropic heat conduction, and convective heat dissipation. The accuracy of the theoretical solution is tested through comparison with numerical solution and experimental data. Our comparisons show that even the first term of the series solution suffices to accurately describe the two-dimensional temperature field inside the battery core with the modest computational effort.