Examining the influence of number of inlets and outlets on the topology optimization design of battery liquid cooling plate

The trade-off between enhancing the thermal performance of battery liquid cooling plates and reducing their pumping power consumption remains an unresolved issue. In order to solve this problem, this study proposes a multi-inlet and multi-outlet liquid cooling plate design method based on topology optimization. Through topology optimization, 2D models with various numbers of inlets and outlets under different arrangements were obtained, and were extended into 3D numerical models. The study investigated the impact of inlet and outlet arrangement direction, quantity, channel depth, and total mass flow rate at the inlet on the performance of liquid cooling plates. The findings indicated that Topology-optimized liquid cooling plates exhibit superior flow and heat exchange performance compared to traditional straight-channel liquid cooling plates. Arranging the inlet and outlet along the width direction of the rectangular liquid cooling plate can reduce the pressure drop. As for the number of inlets and outlets along the width direction, employing three inlets and three outlets, as opposed to a single inlet and outlet, reduced pump power by 29.04 %, increased the heat transfer coefficient by 28.41 %, increased temperature uniformity by 39.13 %, and boosted the comprehensive evaluation factor by 80.7 %. Furthermore, the channel depth of 3 mm, with a total mass flow rate of 15 g/s at the inlet, was the ideal choice for achieving a balance between system heat dissipation and power consumption. Finally, the accuracy of the simulation was validated through experiments.