Cooling performance of battery pack as affected by inlet position and inlet air velocity in electric vehicle
Zhi Xu, Guiyuan Yu, Ting Zhang, Rui Wang
Abstract
Numerical simulation on the U-shaped channel with various inlet positions using air cooling is investigated to solve heat dissipation issue of battery pack in electric vehicle. The mechanism of the influences of inlet position and inlet air velocity on the cooling performance of battery pack is revealed. The results show that the maximum temperature of battery pack decreases by 4.17 K at inlet position of 30 mm compared with that of 20 mm due to the increase of airflow velocity in the second half of the battery pack caused by flow around effect. The maximum temperature of battery pack decreases by 8.5–18.5 K with increasing inlet air velocity from 2 m/s to 5 m/s. The cooling performance improves because of flow around effect and high convective heat transfer using reasonable matching between inlet position (10–30 mm) and inlet air velocity (3–6 m/s). This paper provides valuable guidelines for cooling design of battery pack in electric vehicle.