Method of liquid-cooled thermal control for a large-scale pouch lithium-ion battery

•Presents a method of liquid-cooled thermal control to a large-scale pouch battery.•Influence of fluid flowing on battery temperature field is investigated numerically.•Analyzes the glycol solution concentration on battery thermal distribution.•Studies the effect of cooling trigger-time on battery thermal performance.•Simulation effectiveness was authenticated by a constructed thermal test system. Excellent thermal management is very significant in preserving lithium-ion battery cell work-performance and extending cell cycle-life. This work presents a method of thermal control for a large-scale pouch cell by using an existing liquid cooling plate with streamline channels. Numerically, influences of mass flow rates, cooling trigger-time, and glycol solution concentration on the cell thermal distribution are analyzed in detail. Experimentally, the simulation effectiveness is validated by a constructed thermal test system. It is shown that the increasing mass flow rate plays a positive role in crippling the cell temperature rise and difference. However, there is a marginal effect in this condition. Effect of postponing cooling trigger-time on promoting the cell thermal homogeneity is negative, when the cooling starts at 31 °C, the final cell temperature and temperature difference beyond 32 °C and 5 °C, respectively. The maximum cell temperature and channel pressure drop increase with increasing glycol solution concentration from 0 to 80%. Experimental validation suggests that the test and simulation results coincide with each other (within 2.5 °C), indicating that a promising availability dwells in present thermal management to manage the cell temperature field under a desirable range. This study would be valuable for one to develop a reliable cooling solution for a battery pack stacked with large-scale pouch cells.