BULETINUL INSTITUTULUI POLITEHNIC DIN IAI

Publicat de
Universitatea Tehnic Gheorghe Asachi din Iai,
Tomul LVII (LXI), Fasc. 2, 2012
Secia
CONSTRUCII DE MAINI

TRANSIENT HEAT TRANSFER 1D SIMULATIONS FOR

ELECTRICAL VEHICLE BATTERY USING OPENMODELICA
SOFTWARE PACKAGE
BY

VLAD MARIAN1,2, MIHAI NAGI1 and CIPRIAN FLUIERAS1

University Politehnica Timioara,
Department of Mechanical Engineering
2
RAAL S.A.,
Research and Development
1

Abstract. Increasing demand for clean energy consumptions, and also the continuously
rising of gasoline prices, forced the car manufacturers to consider the electric driven
cars (EV) and hybrid traction cars (HEV), as a solution to this problem. The main
challenge in this field is to develop new batteries that have high power and high storage
capabilities, but this comes at the price of increased heat generation in the battery, heat
that must be evacuated so the battery doesnt suffer any damage. The present article
presents the simulation of 1D thermal model of a battery using the OpenModelica
software package. The aim of this simulation is to develop the cooling system for an
electric vehicle.
Key words: heat transfer, electrical battery, electrical vehicles, hybrid vehicles,
simulation.

1. General Considerations
Electric energy seems to be the future of the vehicles driving power. Due
to continuously rising prices of petrol witch some forecast place a figure of 300
$/barrel in 2035 (Paier, 2011), and due to the growing need for a cleaner

Corresponding author: vlad.martian@raal.ro

Vlad Marian et al.

environment, more and more car manufacturers are beginning to develop

electrical powered (EV) and hybrid (HEV) vehicles. The advantages of this type
of powered vehicle are obvious, and apart from the clean energy consumption
there is also the advantage of efficiency which for the electric engine is around
80% -90%.
The main obstacle in producing on a mass scale this type of vehicles is
represented by the storing capacity of the electrical energy i.e. the batteries.
Actually the storing capacity isnt enough, so one of the main directions of
research is to improve the storing capacity of the batteries. This increase in
energy density and also the need for drawing high powers form the batteries has
another side effect such as increasing the temperature of the battery. The
working temperature of the battery is a very important parameter, for example
for a Li-ion cell an increase in temperature of 15 C will reduce the life of the
cell by about 50% (Asakura, Shimomura, & Shodai, 2003). The temperature
has also another effect on the charge/discharge of the battery and also on the
storage capacity of the battery. These parameters i.e. charge/discharge and
storage capacity is quantified by using the term SOC (State of charge). In the
work of Zheng Popov and others (Zheng, Popov, & White, 1997) an optimum
temperature for a battery is around 25 C, even if now there are batteries that
can have a maximum temperature of 85 C (Winston, 2011). The current
discharge/charge rate grows as the temperature approaches the optimum due to
increased ion mobility and also due to modifications of internal resistance of the
battery, but after the optimum the current charge/discharge rate stats to decrease
due to oxidations that happen inside battery. Increasing the temperature over the
functioning domain make the batteries to have a catastrophic failure, and not
only the performance of the battery will be diminished but also irreversible
oxidations occur and the battery becomes useless (Jiangang, et. al., 2006).
For these reasons, toghether with RAAL S.A., we began to investigate the
necesity of a cooling system for batteries equiped in EV and HEV. This paper
presents the first step from many that includes battery modelling, the modelling
of cooling modules, the modelling of an automatic driver, experimental tests of
the cooling modules, and thermal test on the battery pack, etc.
2. Battery Models
The literature has many models which vary in complexity. There are
complex models that use quantum mechanics for describing the battery at
chemical reaction level (Parthasarathy M Gomadam, et. al. , 2002), (Aron,
Girban, & Pop, 2010), finite element models that describe the spatial dynamics
in the battery (Sievers, Sievers, & Mao, 2010),electrochemical models,
electrical equivalent circuit (Matthias, Andrew,et al., 2005), Dynamic Lumped
parameters models, tabulated battery data models.

Bul. Inst. Polit. Iai, t. LVII (LXI), f. 1, 2011

To model the battery as close to the reality as possible every model has to
take into account the parameters on which the battery depends on, and these
parameters are a few. One of the most important parameter that the battery has
is the so called state of charge, SOC, or the electrical energy stored in the
battery. This parameter depends on other parameters of the battery as the
current drawn from the battery, the time that the current has been drawn, and the
capacity of battery, and can be express in mathematical form as:

SOC 1

I t
.
C

(1)

I (t )dt
SOC (t ) 1
0

(2)

where I the current drawn (A), t time (s), C the battery capacity (A.s)
Other parameters of the battery include the temperature of the battery, the
internal resistance and the open circuit voltage.
In the remaining paper I will only describe the electrical circuit models
which are the base for the model in this article, for other model types you can
see (Gomadam, Weidner, Dougal, & White, 2002).
2.1. Simple model
The simplest model used consists of a constant resistance Rb in series
with an ideal voltage source E0, sketched in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1Simplest model

Even this is very simple form electrical point of view; this model doesnt
take into account the true internal resistance of the battery, which is highly
related to the state of charge (SOC). In this case the draw of energy is unlimited.

Vlad Marian et al.

Another drawback of this model is that it doesnt take into account the thermal
energy generated during discharge.
There are other, improved, electrical models, some of which modify the
internal resistance according to the SOC, and also include other parameters that
take into account the dynamics of the electrical current during discharge. One of
this improved a model that is worth mentioning it is the Thervein model.
2.2. Thervein model
This is another basic battery model which describes a battery with an
ideal voltage source (E0), internal resistance R and a capacitance C0 which
represents the actual capacitance of the battery, and also an over-voltage
resistance R0 (Ziyad & Salameh, 1992). The main disatvantage of this model is
that all the components are constant, whereas in reality all these characteristics
are dependent of the SOC, and the dicharge current. The circuit diagram can be
seen in the Fig. 2. below:

Fig. 2 Thervein Model

2.2. Non linear Dynamic model
A more realistic model has been created by extending the Thervein
model. This new model takes into account the nonlinearities in the components
of the Thervein model. As I said earlier the internal resistance of the battery
R+R0 and the open circuit voltage E0 are dependent on the SOC of the battery,
and also on the temperature T of the battery.
Since we are interested in how the temperature of the battery changes in
time I will use a modification of this later model, which can be seen in a
simplified version in Fig. 3.
In this model different form Thervein model I have included the internal
resistance in the overvoltage resistance, for simplification purpose, and the

Bul. Inst. Polit. Iai, t. LVII (LXI), f. 1, 2011

internal resistance R and the open circuit voltage E0 are dependent on some
function of SOC.

Fig. 3 Non Linear Dynamic model

3. Modeling Implementation
If we want to know how the current and the voltage in the battery are
modified in time we have to solve a system of equations that include first order
differential equations and also algebraic equations. Doing it by hand it takes a
long time, and if one of the parameter is changed we will have to do it again.
There is a faster and error free method anyway doing this with the help of the
computer.
In the following I will present the modeling implementation steps with
the help of the OpenModelica (OpenModelica, 2012) software package.
The first step in modeling the battery was to model the equivalent electric
circuit of tha battery. Since OpenModelica has a diagram development
interface, and because the Modelica language (Modelica, 2012) is an equation
based language, the implementation of the electrical model was straithforward.
In the Fig. 4 can be seen the end result of the model.
The battery model is composed from different components, which are
electrical components represented by:

Voc that implements a signal voltage source,

Rint that implements a variable resistor, the internal rezistor of the

battery

C that implements a capacitor

ISens that implements a measuring sensor for curent drawn

Vlad Marian et al.

To complete the battery model it was necesarry to include non electric

components such as:

mCp implements a heat capacitor

Temp implements a temperature sensor

Soc implements the SOC parametter acording to equation (2)

ExpDataVoc,ExpDataR implements experimental functions for

open circuit voltage and respectively for internal rezistor of the
battery

Fig. 4 Battery model.

The battery model is linked with the rest of the circuit by three
connectors: a positive (p) and negative (n) electric connectors, and a heat
connector (heatPort)
Let us explain the thermal part of the battery:

Bul. Inst. Polit. Iai, t. LVII (LXI), f. 1, 2011

It is well known that the energy conservation law stipulates that the
energy that is stored in a domain must equal the energy that comes in minus the
energy that goes out plus the energy generated inside the domain. The equation
form per unit time, of this law can take the form:

dEst dEin dEout dE g

dt
dt
dt
dt

(3)

And in the case of a solid domain as the battery, and where we do not have
phase change the equation (3) becomes:

m Cp

dT
Rint i 2 (t ) hA[T Tamb ]
dt

(4)

where m mass of the battery, Cp specific heat capacity of the battery, T

battery temperature, Rint internal battery resistance, h thermal convection
coefficient with the outside medium, A exchange surface of the battery, and
i(t) the current intensity.
The equation (4) is implemented in the battery model as in Fig. 5, except the
Temp sensor, which it is used for linking the temperature to the other
components

Fig. 5 Thermal model

4. Simulations
For simulations we have choose a Winston Li-ion battery (Winston,
2011) with a capacity of 60 Ah. The internal resistances and the open circuit
voltage where determined by fitting the charts form the manufacturers data. The
capacitor value was taken to be 4.047kF (Valerie, Ahmad, & Thomas, 2000).

Vlad Marian et al.

Because we wanted only to test the model, first we have simulated the model
without any cooling and with a constant resistor taken to be the load on the
battery. You can see the modeling in the Fig. 6

Fig. 6 Battery without cooling

The simulation was done for a time of 1 hour in which the battery has
been drained for almost the entire energy. In the following charts you can see
the most important parameters of the battery function of time:

Battery Temperature [C]

70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0

10

20

30

40

Time [min]

Fig. 7 Battery Temperature

50

60

70

Bul. Inst. Polit. Iai, t. LVII (LXI), f. 1, 2011

80

4.5

70

60

3.5
3

50

2.5

40

30

1.5

20

10

0.5

Battery Voltage [V]

Current Intensity [A]

As it is observed from the Fig. 7 the temperature is rising and in an hour

of using the battery with a constant load the temperature rises with almost 40
o
C.

0
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Time [min]
Current Intensity

Battery Voltage

Fig. 8 Current Intensity & Voltage

4

0.09

3.5

0.08
0.07
0.06

2.5

0.05

0.04
1.5

Rint []

Eoc [V]

0.03

0.02

0.5

0.01

0
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

SOC
Open circuit voltage

Fig. 9 Battery internal parameters

1.2
Internal Resistance

Vlad Marian et al.

Chart in Fig. 8 show the current intensity and voltage evolution in time
and Fig. 9 show the battery parameters, Open Voltage Eoc and internal
resistance Rint function of the battery state SOC.
Another simulation done was with a simple cooling of the battery, and
with a variable load resistor which changes the current drawn over time

Fig. 10 Second Simulation

30

1.2

25

20

0.8

15

0.6

10

0.4

0.2

SOC

Temperature [ C]

Here we used a convection model to remove the heat from the battery and
an ambient temperature of 20 oC.

0
0

10

20

30
Time [min]

40

50
Temperature

Fig. 11 Temperature and SOC

60
SOC

30

120

25

100

20

80

15

60

10

40

20

Current intensity [A]

Temperature [ C]

Bul. Inst. Polit. Iai, t. LVII (LXI), f. 1, 2011

0
0

10

20

30
Time [min]

40

50

Tempera ture

60
Intens i ty

Fig. 12 Temperature and Current Intensity

In Fig. 12 can be seen that the temperature and the current intensity are
connected but there is a slight shift between the current maximum and the
temperature maximum, this can be explained if we look at Fig. 11 and Fig. 9. In
Fig. 11 can be observed that the maximum temperature is near a SOC of 0 and
from Fig. 9 we can see that at SOC near 0 the internal resistance rises so more
heat will be generated.
Another fact that can be observed is that due to current intensity the
battery drains out more rapidly, which is in concordance with the reality.
5. Conclusions and Future work
This researchs main objective was to model the battery to include the
heat generated and to extract information from it.
As can be seen in the first simulation in Fig. 7 the Li-ion battery will need
a cooling system to maintain its temperature at an optimal value. Without it the
batterys temperature can raise above the maximum temperature and it will
damage the battery
The OpenModelica is a great tool that can help us in creating what if
scenarios and we rapidly can take decisions about the dynamics of any physical
system.

Vlad Marian et al.

Even OpenModelica helped us to see the extent of the heat generation in

the battery we still need to do experiment and to determine if we took all the
parameters in this model, so the next phase will be to determine experimentally
the batterys coefficients and to validate the model.
Acknowledgements. The authors would like to thank University
Politehnica of Timisoara, and also to RAAL S.A. Company for the support in
this endeavor.
REFERENCES
Aron, A., Girban, G., & Pop, C. (2010). About the solution of a battery
mathematical model. Int. Conf. of Diff. Geom. and Dynamical Systems
(p. 10). Bucharest: Balkan Society of Geometers, Geometry Balkan
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Asakura, K., Shimomura, M., & Shodai, T. (2003, June). Study of life
evaluation methods for Li-ion batteries for backup application. Journal
of Power Sources, Volumes 119-121 , 902-905.
Gomadam, P. M., Weidner, J. W., Dougal, R. A., & White, R. E. (2002).
Mathematical modeling of lithium-ion and nikel battery systems.
Journal of Power Sources , 110, 267-284.
Jiangang, L., Xiangming, H., Maosong, F., hunrong, W., Changin, J., &
Shichao, Z. (2006). Capacity fading of LiCr0.1Mn1.9O4/MPCF cells at
elevated temperature. Ionics , 12, 153-157.
Matthias, D., Andrew, C., Sinclair, G., & McDonald, J. (2005). Dynamic model
of a lead acid battery for use in. Journal of Power Sources , 161 (2),
1400-1411.
Modelica, A. (2012). Modelica. Retrieved May 5, 2012, from Modelica:
www.modelica.org
OpenModelica. (2012). OpenModelica. Retrieved April 5, 2012, from
OpenModelica: www.openmodelica.org
Paier, O. (2011). The E-Car Challenge. Kuli User Meeting. Steyr, Austria.
Sievers, M., Sievers, U., & Mao, S. (2010). Thermal modelling of new Li-ion
cell design modifications. Forschung im Ingenieurwesen , 74 (4), 215231.
Valerie, H. J., Ahmad, A. P., & Thomas, S. (2000). Temperature-Dependent
Battery Models for. 17th Electric Vehicle Simposium (p. 15).
Montreal,Canada: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Winston. (2011, May 5). GWL Power. Retrieved May 5, 2012, from GWL
Power: http://www.ev-power.eu/docs/GWL-LFP-Product-Spec-260AH7000AH.pdf

Bul. Inst. Polit. Iai, t. LVII (LXI), f. 1, 2011

Zheng, G., Popov, N. B., & White, R. E. (1997). Effect of temperature on

performance of LaNi4.76Sn0.24. Journal of Applied Electrochemistry ,
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Ziyad, M., & Salameh, M. A. (1992). A mathematical model for lead-acid
batteries. IEEE Trans. Energy Convers , 7, 93-97.
SIMULARI 1D ASUPRA SCHIMBULUI TERMIC AL BATERIILOR
VEHICULELOR ELECTRICE FOLOSIND PACHETUL SOFTWARE
OPENMODELICA
Datorit creterii nevoii de energie cu emisii zero, productorii de
vehicule au fost forai s caute soluii ctre zona vehiculelor electrice (EV) i a
vehiculelor hibride (HEV). Acestea folosesc pentru propulsie energie electric,
energie cu emisii zero. Dei acest tip de locomoie nu este unul nou, ncercri de
a realiza maini electrice datnd de la nceputul secolului XX, realizarea
acestora fiind temperat de dificultile stocrii acestei energi. Totui pe la
mijlocul secolului trecut, datorit nevoii de mobilitate au fost dezvoltate baterii
solide care pot stoca o densitate mai mare de energie, ceea ce a ajutat si la
dezvoltarea vehiculelor electrice.
Recunoscnd importana mare a acestui tip de locomie, RAAL S.A. a
iniiat un studiu aspura necesitii rciri acestor baterii, aceast lucrare
reprezentnd un prim pas in realizarea unor sisteme de rcire pentru bateriile
vehiculelor electrice.
n lucrarea de fata este prezentata o modalitate de realizare a unui model
de baterie, care s includ si influena temperaturii bateriei n performantele
acesteia, ct si pentru a vedea necesitatea unui astfel de sistem de rcire.
Modelul teoretic este implementat folosind pachetul software gratuit
OpenModelica. Avantajul acestui pachet software fa de altele cum ar fi
Mathlab si Mathematica, in afara gratuitii acestuia, este limbajul de
programare, care este un limbaj bazat pe rezolvarea ecuaiilor ceea ce ne
permite modelarea sistemelor fizice in limajul stiinific, fra ajutor din partea
unor specialiti in programare structurat.
Pentru exemplificarea avantajelor oferite, lucrarea prezint rezultatele a
dou simulari:
Prima simulare este realizat pe o celul a bateriei folosind o ncrcare
constant, rezistor1 n Fig. 6, i fr o rcire a bateriei. Dup cum se poate
observa din rezltatele acestei simulari Fig. 7, Fig. 8 i Fig. 9, n funcie de
curentul extras temperatura bateriei crete cu 40 oC n timp de 1 or. Scopul
acestei simulri a fost de a derermina necesitatea de rcire a unei astfel de
baterii.
Cel de al doi-lea exemplu este o simulare m care se ia in considerare i o
rcire a bateriei prin convectie i o ncarcare variabil Fig. 13. Rezultatele

Vlad Marian et al.

acestei simulri sunt prezentate n figurile Fig. 12 i Fig. 11, aici se poate
observa termostatarea bateriei dar si a variaiei temperaturii n funcie de
puterea extras din baterie, putere reprezentat de curentul extras.
n concluzie se poate afirma c bateriile solide de tipul Li-ion necesit o
rcire, iar aceasta depinde de puterea extras.
Pachetul OpenModelica este un mediu de simulare util, care permite
crearea i simularea, n diferite condiii, a modelelor fizice uor si cu evitarea
erorilor de calcul.
n continuare se va ncerca dezvoltarea unor modele de rcire mai
complicate si care s reflecte ct mai aproape de adevr realitatea.