Integrated Battery Thermal Management System Coupling Phase Change Material Cooling and Direct Heating Strategies
Chongmao Mo, Guoqing Zhang, Xiurong Ma, Xihong Wu, Xiaoqing Yang
Abstract
The current battery thermal management (BTM) system integrating indirect heating and PCM cooling structures still suffers from relatively low heating efficiency and high energy consumption. In this work, we develop a BTM structure, which possesses both heating and cooling functionalities, by directly wrapping thin heating films around the cells inserted in a phase change material cooling module. Compared to the indirect heating structure, this novel direct contact structure allows direct heat transfer from the heating film to the batteries and thereby presents a more effective heating performance and lower energy consumption. For example, under the ambient temperature of 0 °C, the direct heating strategy with a heating power of 80 W delivers the shortest heating time of 78 s along with a temperature difference (ΔT) of 3.07 °C, thereby demonstrating the highest comprehensive evaluation factor of 0.645 and lowest energy consumption of 3.9%. Under the more severe ambient temperature of −20 °C, a heating time of 384 s with a ΔT of 3.77 °C can be achieved at a direct heating power of 60 W, suggesting the highest comprehensive evaluation factor of 0.503 and a lower energy consumption of 14.5%.