Evaluation of fin intensified phase change material systems for thermal management of Li-ion battery modules

•Fins formed a multi-channel thermal conduction network in the PCM•The optimized fin intensified PCM system increased the working time by 121.9%•The proposed system could work efficiently in high-temperature environments The low thermal conductivity of phase change materials (PCM) dramatically hinders the PCM-based battery thermal management systems (BTMSs). In this work, metal fin intensified PCM systems were proposed for thermal control of Li-ion battery modules. Single-cell experiments were firstly performed to validate the model. The influences of the thermal management systems, distribution of fins, length of fins, and ambient temperature on the thermal behaviors of the battery modules were then numerically investigated by ANSYS Fluent. The results indicated that metal fins increased the heat exchange area and formed a multi-channel high thermal conduction network, which could intensify the heat dissipation rate and increase the working time by 98.4% compared with the PCM system. Modification of the distribution of fins resulted in more uniform thermal conduction networks and improved the working time by up to 15.2%. Extending the fins helped to expand the network. The working time was further enhanced by 8.3% by increasing the length of fins from 7.5 to 13.5 mm. Besides, the proposed fin intensified systems could work efficiently, even under high-temperature conditions. The corresponding working time was increased by 1.48, 1.49, and 1.81 times for the ambient temperature of 20, 30, and 40 ℃, respectively, compared to the PCM system, demonstrating the superiorities of the fin intensified PCM systems over the PCM systems.