Structural design of a composite board/heat pipe based on the coupled electro-chemical-thermal model in battery thermal management system

Based on the electrochemical-thermal coupled model, we build a coupled three-dimensional battery thermal management system (BTMS) which combines the composite board and the heat pipes. This model is applied to assess the heat performances of different structural BTMS with boards and pipes. The results show that the system with the heat pipes and composite board is more effective in improving heat performances than that with a single composite board. Furthermore, the BTMS with a combination of vertical and horizontal pipes achieves a higher comprehensive cooling efficiency than that with the single pipes. The optimal arrays exhibit a significant improvement of the comprehensive performances of the traditional composite board thermal management system, where Tmax and ΔT reach 296.85 K and 3.29 K after a full charging/discharging cycle under a 3C rate, respectively. Besides, the contact area between the battery and pack shell plays a vital role in the cooling performances. At the same time, the improved BTMS based on horizontal pipes achieves the highest cooling efficiency, with Tmax = 294.37 K and ΔT = 1.08 K. •An electrochemical-thermal coupled model is proposed to analyze temperature performances of BTMS.•The cooling efficiency of the heat-conducting shell with the pipe inlet is better than that of the single pipe BTMS.•Several arrangements of pipes with the same contact area are exhibited to determine the optimal strategy.•A sandwiched configuration combining composite plates and cooling pipes is designed to enhance the cooling performance.