Novel investigation strategy for mini‐channel liquid‐cooled battery thermal management system

Many researchers have focused on liquid-cooled devices with simple structure and high efficiency, which promoted the gradual development of the mini-channel liquid-cooled plate battery thermal management system (BTMS), due to the advancement of liquid cooling technology. This paper has proposed an electrochemical-thermal coupling model to numerically predict the thermal behavior of the battery pack in different parameters of mini-channel cold plates and optimize the parameter combinations. The effects of cooling plate width, mini-channel interval, and inlet mass flow rate on the heat dissipation performance of the system were analyzed at a constant C-rate to provide a reliable experimental basis for the optimization model. Results indicate that increasing the cold plate width and the inlet mass flow rate reduce the temperature and temperature gradients. In addition, the minimum temperature difference is obtained at the mini-channel interval of 6 mm. The optimum cooling plate width (90 mm), mini-channel interval (4 mm), and inlet mass flow rate (80 g/s) are determined using the orthogonal test, analysis of variance, and comprehensive analysis of multi-index results. The addition of an auxiliary cooling system based on the optimized combination further reduces the maximum temperature and temperature difference of the battery pack by 4.9% and 9.2%, respectively. The developed strategy and methods can further improve the performance of the BTMS and provide a reference for the development of a compact battery pack at high discharge rates for engineering applications.