Design and Optimization of an F‐type Air‐Cooling Structure for Lithium‐Ion Battery of Electric Vehicle

Air cooling is a common cooling strategy to guarantee the performance and safety of electric vehicles, in battery thermal management systems (BTMS). Based on the traditional Z‐type and U‐type, a novel F‐type air‐cooling BTMS is proposed in this paper. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method is used to investigate the cooling performance of F‐type BTMS, and the effectiveness of the CFD method is verified by experiments. First, the effect of the outlet's position on the cooling efficiency of the F‐type BTMS is explored. It is revealed in the results that the outlet's position plays an important role in the cooling effect. Subsequently, the angle of the distribution manifold of the F‐type model is optimized. It is shown in the results that the maximum temperature (Tmax) and the maximum temperature difference (ΔTmax) of the optimized model are reduced by 2.28 (5.22%) and 4.36 °C (89.33%), respectively, compared with the Z‐type model. Then, baffles are added to some air flow channels and the shape of the battery box top corners is changed to further optimize its heat dissipation performance. Compared with the Z‐type model, the Tmax and ΔTmax of the optimum model are decreased by 2.48 (5.66%) and 4.60 °C (94.26%), respectively. In order to obtain lower pressure drop and temperature distribution, a new F‐type air cooling system structure based on the existing Z‐type and U‐type battery thermal management system (BTMS) is prpoposed, which improves the cooling effect of the BTMS by adding baffles in the cooling channels.