Enhancement of lithium-ion battery thermal management with the divergent-shaped channel cold plate

•A divergent-shaped channel cold plate is proposed to enhance the BTM performance.•A cold plate with 2 inlets and 1 outlet is developed to reduce the local resistance.•A battery cooling module with the counter flow are constructed for BTM. Effective thermal management is critical to the performance and durability of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles. As an alternative to conventional cold plates with straight channels, a new cold plate with divergent-shaped channels has been proposed to minimize the maximum temperature and pressure drop. Compared with conventional straight-shaped channels, the divergent-shaped channels exhibit enhanced performance with a higher heat dissipation capacity and lower frictional resistance. To further reduce the local flow resistance, divergent-shaped channels with two inlets and one outlet have been evaluated. This new design can successfully decrease the pressure drop by 7.2% and decrease the maximum temperature difference from 3.99 to 3.19 K. Finally, battery cooling modules with a counter-flow configuration have been constructed, which achieve a smaller maximum temperature difference. This work contributes to the development of effective and efficient battery cooling systems for electric vehicles.