Energy Conversion and Management 65 (2013) 9297

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Energy Conversion and Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enconman

Experimental investigation on thermal management of electric vehicle battery with heat pipe
Zhonghao Rao a, Shuangfeng Wang a,, Maochun Wu a, Zirong Lin a, Fuhuo Li b
a Key Laboratory of Enhanced Heat Transfer and Energy Conservation of the Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China b Sanmenxia SuDa Communication Energy Saving Technology Corporation Ltd., Sanmenxia 472000, China

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
In order to increase the cycle time of power batteries and decrease the overall cost of electric vehicles, the thermal management system equipped with heat pipes was designed according to the heat generated character of power batteries. The experimental result showed that the maximum temperature could be controlled below 50 C when the heat generation rate was lower than 50 W. Coupled with the desired temperature difference, the heat generation rate should not exceed 30 W. The maximum temperature and temperature difference are kept within desired rang under unsteady operating conditions and cycle testing conditions. Applying heat pipes based power batteries thermal management is an effective method for energy saving in electric vehicles. 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 11 May 2012 Received in revised form 25 July 2012 Accepted 17 August 2012 Available online 11 October 2012 Keywords: Thermal management Power battery Heat pipe Electric vehicle Temperature difference

1. Introduction On account of the advantages such as energy saving and zeroemissions, electric vehicles have received more and more attention in recent years. The developing electric vehicles market demands high specic power and high specic energy density batteries for the purpose of meeting the operational needs of electric vehicles [1]. Various power batteries including leadacid [2], nickel metal hydride (Ni-MH) [3] and lithium-ion (Li-ion) [4] are available for electric vehicles applications. In general, the performance of power batteries directly affects the performance of electric vehicles [5]. However, the heat generated from the power battery during charge/discharge can lead to safety risks such as overheating, combustion, and explosion of the battery [6]. Ramadass et al. [7] did a capacity fade analysis for Li-ion battery and elucidated that 31% and 36% of the initial capacity were lost after 800 chargedischarge cycles which were operated at 25 C and 45 C, respectively; while the capacity fades were more than 60% after 600 cycles at 50 C and 70% after 500 cycles at 55 C. Li and Su [8] also pointed out that the cycle life of lithium-ion battery is 3323 cycles at 45 C, but 1037 cycles at 60 C. Therefore, thermal safety is a key issue for the research and development of power battery within electric vehicles. For the purpose of increasing the cycle life of power battery, and

Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 20 22236929.

E-mail address: sfwang@scut.edu.cn (S. Wang). 0196-8904/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2012.08.014

decreasing the cost of whole electric vehicles, an effective thermal management system for battery module/pack is crucial. There are several battery thermal management strategies which can be summarized as active and passive systems [9], or air [10], liquid [11] and phase change material (PCM) [12] based systems and combination of them. A detailed review of battery thermal management can be seen in our previous work Ref. [13]. Each method has its advantages and it can be used under the specic condition. The active battery thermal management system such as air forced convection cooling and liquid cooling increases the total energy consumption of the electric vehicles. Hence, the passive battery thermal management system without parasitic power consumption will be more suitable for commercialize of electric vehicles. We have investigated the thermal management performance of aging commercial rectangular LiFePO4 power batteries using PCM [14]. Selman and Al-Hallaj, who rst demonstrated the PCM based battery thermal management, have presented many results by experimental and simulated methods [1518]. Duan and Naterer [19] also provided some new experimental data for the effective thermal design of PCM based battery thermal management system. The previous works showed that PCM for power battery thermal management was successful. Most of these works have pointed out that the thermal conductivity of traditional PCMs were lower that limited them usage for battery thermal management. In this context, it is necessary to enhance the heat transfer of PCM or to consider new passive battery thermal management systems.

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Nomenclature A ce cp h inj m keff kD q T T0 DT t Uj v area (m2) concentration of the electrolyte (k mol cm3) specic heat capacity (kJ kg1 K1) heat transfer coefcient (kW m2 K1) transfer current density (A m2) mass (kg) effective solution conductivity (X1 m1) diffusional conductivity of a species (A m1) total heat (kJ) temperature (K) ambient temperature (K) temperature difference (K) time (s) equilibrium potential (V) average heat generation rate (kW) Greek letters interfacial surface area per unit volume (m2 m3) potential in the matrix phase (V) ;s ;e potential in the solution phase (V) r matrix conductivity (X1 m1) e emissivity rr StefanBoltzmann constant (kW m2 K4)

asj

Subscripts b battery c convection heat transfer D discharge r radiation heat transfer s stored in the battery

On the other hand, heat pipes, which are well regarded as super thermal conductors, have been widely used in many industrial areas for their efcient cooling and thermal management [20]. Chang et al. [21] have experimentally investigated the thermal performance of the heat pipe cooling system for electronic equipments. Lin et al. [22] have carried out an experimental study to investigate the heat transfer characteristics of heat pipe for cooling light emitting diode (LED). Elnaggar et al. [23] have presented the performance analysis of a nned U-shape heat pipe used for desktop PCCPU cooling. A heat pipe, which consists of a sealed container whose inner surfaces have capillary wicking material to provide driving force to return the condensate to the evaporator, can be seen as passive method for heat transport without additional power consumption. Wu et al. [11] have formulated a two-dimensional, transient heat-transfer model to simulate the temperature distribution in the Li-ion batteries for heat dissipation by using heat pipe. Barantsevich and Shabalkin [24] have described the testing aspects of ammonia axial grooved heat pipes for thermal control of the solar battery drive integrated into the International Space Station. Park et al. [25] have proposed optimization procedures by numerical analysis for loop heat pipe designed to cool the Li-ion battery onboard a military aircraft. It is not difcult to nd that the previous works mainly focus on the performance investigation of heat pipes. Application related researches of heat pipes are seldom performed especially by using experimental method on power battery within electric vehicles. In the present study, in order to maintain high performance and lifetime of the whole power battery modules/packs for electric vehicles, thermal management of power batteries with heat pipes is examined experimentally. Both the temperature response and temperature difference are detailedly discussed. This study provides new experimental data for the effective thermal design of heat pipes based battery thermal management system.

i ; j sj nj s
eff

;e U j
eff

X
j

asj inj T

@Uj reff r;s r;s @T 1

k r;e r;e kD r ln ce r;e

As the processes of the decomposition and reaction in the battery are very complex, it is necessary to simplify the calculation of heat generation rate from the heat transfer point of view. The total heat generated in the battery contains three parts and can be described as:

q qs qc qr qs mb cp dT dt

2 3 4 5

qc heff ArT
4 qr err AT 4 b T0

where qs, qc and qr represent the heat stored in the battery, the heat transported to outer by convection heat transfer and radiation heat transfer, respectively. The average heat generation rate of the battery can be calculated as:

q tD

2. Experiment In order to better understand the thermal management performance of power battery with heat pipes, the heat generation mechanisms of the battery are inevitable to comprehend rstly. For Li-ion battery, the heat may generate in solid electrolyte interface lm [26], electrolyte and anode decomposition [27], the reaction of cathode and electrolyte or adhesive [2830]. Assuming the enthalpy of mixing and phase change effects can be neglected, the heat generated into a battery can be expressed as follows [31,32]:

Generally, the radiation heat transfer inside the battery pack can be neglected that the heat generation rate of the battery can be obtained based on the temperature rise of the battery. Our previous works [14] have presented the heat generated character of commercial rectangular LiFePO4 power battery. The battery (118 mm in length, 63 mm in width and 13 mm in height) with a nominal capacity of 8 Ah was used in the previous experiment. In the current work, the heat generating power was varied by regulating different voltage and current through the heater to reduce the waste of batteries. The aluminum made rectangular heater has a same size with real LiFePO4 power battery. In order to maintain the evaporator section of the heat pipes and heater similar to the battery pack in EV, the adiabatic environment was set around the heater. The battery thermal management system with heat pipes is shown in Fig. 1. Four heat pipes was distributed evenly and contacted compactly with thermal silica (ZC-801) on the surface of the battery. The heat pipes were manufactured at Novark Technology Inc. (Shenzhen, China) and the evaporation section (8 mm) of each heat pipe was made into a at shape. The heat pipe was made by copper tube with outer diameter of 5 mm and inner diameter of

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Fig. 1. Schematic of the experimental set-up.

4.4 mm. The thickness of the wick structure into the heat pipe is 0.9 mm. The width and thickness of evaporation section of the heat pipe are 6.2 mm and 3.1 mm, respectively. The total length of the heat pipe is 18 mm. The vacuum was established by using a vacuum pump and the liquid lling ratio was controlled around 50 5%. The working uid is water and the condensation section (5 mm) was cooled by water module (25 0.05 C). Temperatures in different locations were measured using K-type thermocouples and the detailed locations of thermocouples can be seen in Fig. 1. 3. Results and discussion 3.1. Temperature control and distribution Fig. 2 shows the start-up process of heat pipes with the input power from 10 W to 60 W. There is no doubt that the temperature of heat pipes are on the rise with the increasing of heating power. To control the temperature of power battery within a reasonable range, the start-up temperature and heat transfer limit of heat pipes must be considered rstly. Pesaran [33] has pointed out that the best range of operating temperature of leadacid, Ni-MH and Li-ion batteries are between 25 and 40 C. It can be seen that the start-up temperature of the tested two heat pipes are about 30 C. That is, the heat pipes are effective from the point of view of start-up temperature. The comprehensive performance of power battery decreases with the increase of temperature. Temperature above 50 C will

lower the charging efciency or the longevity properties of power batteries [34]. Therefore, the maximum temperature of power batteries should be controlled below 50 C. As shown in Fig. 3a, the maximum temperature is higher than 50 C when the input power is 60 W. In order to verify the cooling effect, the input power was set directly as 50 W, which last for about 1400 s. The temperature at different locations variation as a function of time is shown in Fig. 3b. The maximum temperature does not excess 50 C during the heating process. It can be concluded preliminarily that the above heat pipes is effective to cool a power battery with heat generation rate less than 50 W. However, temperature distribution into the power batteries is also very important for electrochemical performance and cycle life. The heat produced at the positive electrode reaction is even about three times more than that of overall battery reaction for single electrodes Li-ion battery [35]. Hence, it is desirable to have a temperature difference (DT) below 5 C for single cell or module to module [33]. As shown in Fig. 3b, although the maximum temperature is lower than 50 C when the input power is 50 W, the temperature difference (DT = T4 T1) is higher than 5 C. The temperature difference variation as a function of time under different input power can be seen in Fig. 3c and d. The temperature difference response curves of input power from 30 W to 50 W shows that in order to distribute the heat more even, the actual input power must lower than 50 W. Coupled with the temperature difference response curves of input power from 28 W to 32 W, the effective input power is 30 W. In other words, with well designed heat pipes, the temperature rise and temperature difference of power batteries can be effectively controlled within desired range.

56 52 48 T11 T12 T21 T22 T0 Tin Tout

20 W 10 W 60 W 50 W 40 W 30 W

3.2. Unsteady operating conditions The power batteries used in electric vehicles are different with other electronic devices and electrical equipment. More heat will be generated during the start and accelerate process of electric vehicles with the increase of discharge current and high power output. Fig. 4 shows the temperature difference variation with input power from 35 W to 50 W. The time of temperature difference lower than 5 C is 144 s, 78 s, 42 s and 30 s for input power as 35 W, 40 W, 45 W and 50 W, respectively. According to the above results, the maximum temperature is below 50 C when the input power is lower than 50 W. Therefore, the heat pipes are effective for thermal management of the power batteries which have heat

Temperature (C)

44 40 36 32 28 24 20 0

400

800

1200 1600 2000 2400 2800 3200 3600

Time (s)
Fig. 2. Start-up process of heat pipes under different input power.

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95

(a)
Temperature (C)

56 52 48 44 40 36 32 28 24 20 0 600 1200 1800 2400 3000 3600

T4 T3 T2

6 5 4

T (C)

T1

3 2 1 0

35W 40W 45W 50W

Time (s)

50

100

150

200

250

300

Time (s)

(b)
Temperature (C)

52 48 44 40
T1 T4 T3 T2
T

Fig. 4. Temperature difference variation with input power from 35 W to 50 W.

36 32 28 24 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600

Time (s)

(c)

10

8
50W

T (C)

40W

generation rate lower than 50 W with quick start and transient accelerate process. Another form of accelerated condition for electric vehicles is the electric vehicles driving uphill. Compared with the horizontal road, the electric vehicles are tilted at uphill and downhill conditions. In this case, the heat pipes will be tilted with the electric vehicles. Fig. 5 shows the temperature difference variation under different slope of the heat pipe with an input power as 30 W. The heat pipe shows a best performance when it is placed vertically (90). Part of the temperature difference exceeds 5 C when the slope of the heat pipe is changed to 45. The temperature difference becomes higher than 5 C from 424 s when the slope of the heat pipe is approaching horizontal (0). Some researches which focus on the performance of heat pipes have showed that the main reason for the difference temperature response is due to the thermal resistance increase with the slope of heat pipe. To spread the use areas such as mountainous areas of electric vehicles in the future, the heat transfer performance of heat pipes under different slope is also should be considered.

30W

3.3. Cycle characteristic The overall efciency of energy saving for electric vehicles is determined by the performance especially cycle life of power batteries. As can be seen from Fig. 6a, the maximum temperature and temperature difference are all under desired range when the input power is changed from 30 W to 5 W. And from Fig. 6b, the maximum

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

Time (s)

(d)

6
28W 30W 32W

T (C)

T (C)

360

720

1080

1440

1800

2160

Time (s)
Fig. 3. Temperature response of the power battery: (a) variation with different input power; (b) variation as a function of time with input power as 50 W; (c) difference variation as a function of time under different input power; and (d) different input power from 28 W to 32 W.

90 45 0

200

400

600

800

1000

Time (s)
Fig. 5. Temperature variation under different slope of heat pipe with an input power as 30 W.

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(a)
Temperature (C)

40 36 32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4 0 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 30W 25W 20W 15W 10W 5W

T4

are effective method for power batteries thermal management. The future work will include expanding the discussion of the heat pipes based battery thermal management coupled with phase change materials.

Acknowledgements This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51146009), International Cooperation and Exchange Program from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (Grant No. 2011DFA60290) and Research plan of Guangdong Province, China (Grant No. 2010A080802003). References

T (C)
3500

Time (s)

(b)
Temperature (C)

40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500

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T4

T (C)

Time (s)
Fig. 6. Variation of the maximum temperature and temperature difference under cycle conditions.

temperature and temperature difference are below 40 C and 5 C, respectively. During the four cycles, the input power is set as 30 W but the heating time is set randomly as 542 s, 458 s, 650 s and 600 s, respectively. For many private electric vehicles, the actual usage is so non-continuous that the heat pipes based battery thermal management system is sufcient. For the fast change and charge power batteries, the heat pipes are still effective with well designed. The desired cycle performance shows that the heat pipes are positive for power batteries thermal management. 4. Conclusions For the purpose of saving energy and decreasing the cost of electric vehicles, the power batteries should be operated in the desired temperature range and even temperature distribution. The heat pipes based power battery thermal management system we designed according to the heat generated character. The following conclusions are summarized on the basis of experimental results: (1) The maximum temperature of the battery can be controlled under 50 C when the heat generation rate is lower than 50 W. The temperature rise is a key factor which must be considered rstly for the design of power battery thermal management system. (2) The maximum temperature difference is below 5 C with a heat generation rate which does not exceed 30 W. The temperature distribution is inevitable to make a reference to better design of heat pipes used for heat dissipation. (3) Under unsteady operating conditions and cycle testing, the maximum temperature and temperature difference are controlled within desired range. It is indicated that heat pipes

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