Optimization strategy for battery thermal management system with phase change materials, aerogel and cold plates

The thermal management system is critical for battery packs in electrical vehicles. Coupling the battery thermal management system (BTMS) with phase change materials (PCMs) and cold plates (CPs) has demonstrated good cooling performance. However, part of the PCMs inside the existing systems doesn't experience phase change, which contribute less to the cooling performance as the weight load increases. In this study, aerogel as the typical lightweight flame retardant materials (FRMs) is adopted to replace the un-melted PCMs to reduce the weight of the system. An optimization strategy for the distribution of PCMs/FRMs in the coupled BTMS is proposed to improve the cooling performance with the system's volume fixed. By locating PCMs on the high-temperature area, an optimized system can be obtained by taking just a few adjusting steps using the developed strategy. After the optimization, the maximum temperature and temperature difference inside the battery pack are reduced by1.0 K and 49% respectively, with the weight of the filling materials among battery cells decreasing by 45%. The proposed strategy shows great potential for efficient optimization of coupled BTMSs with phase change materials and cold plates, which can improve the cooling and lightweight performance of the system simultaneously.