Experimental study on the performance of power battery module heating management under a low–temperatures charging scenario

To effectively solve the problem that the capacity of lithium power batteries decreases significantly and is prone to irreversible damage under low–temperature charge and discharge scenarios, which seriously affects the driving range, cycle life and service safety of electric vehicles (EVs). In this paper, a low–temperatures thermal management system of pulsating heat pipes with ethanol as the base fluids and TiO2 nanofluids as the working fluids (TiO2–CLPHP TMS) is constructed. On this basis, the thermal performance analysis of TiO2 nanofluids pulsating heat pipes (TiO2–CLPHP) is carried out under different volume concentrations (0 %, 0.5 %, 1.0 %, 2.0 %, 4.0 %, and 8.0 %) and different fluid filling rates (30 %, 50 %, 70 %, and 90 %) in a low–temperature environment. Aiming at the low–temperatures charging scenario of the battery module, the performance test of the TiO2–CLPHP TMS for the battery module heating management is carried out under different low–temperature environments (−5 °C, −15 °C, and −25 °C) and different charging rates (0.3C, 0.5C, 0.7C, and 1.0C). The experimental results show that TiO2–CLPHP with fluids filling rate of 50.00 % and TiO2 nanofluids concentration of 2.00 % has good performance in start–up and heat transfer, and can optimize the thermal performance of TiO2–CLPHP. Meanwhile, TiO2–CLPHP TMS can ensure that the battery module has superior thermal performance. the battery module can be charged within the allowed temperature range (greater than 0 °C). under different low temperature environments (−5 °C, −15 °C, and −25 °C), the temperature of the battery module is basically maintained at 3.30 °C, 8.00 °C and 16.00 °C. The temperature difference between different areas of the battery module is within the allowable temperature difference range of 5 °C, which reduces the adverse effects of the battery aging caused by low–temperature charging and uneven temperature. Moreover, the battery module also has good electrical performance, the battery module voltage is in a low–level range in the early and middle stages of charging. During the complete charging process, the low–temperature charging capacity of the battery module has almost no attenuation, and the charging capacity ratio is as high as 95.92 %. Compared with the pure battery module, the charging capacity and charging efficiency of the battery module with the TiO2-CLPHP TMS has been improved to different degrees. Especially at −25 °C, the maximum charging capacity and charging efficiency can be increased to 24.51 %, and the minimum can be increased to 13.17 %. which ensures the efficient charging of the battery module. This proves that the designed TiO2–CLPHP TMS is feasible and effective for battery module heating management.