Topology optimization of a new leaf-vein type bionic channel liquid-cooling plate for lithium batteries

• A combined approach of biomimetic design and topology optimization was introduced. • Topology optimization improved heat transfer and minimized fluid power dissipation in the LVTB cold plate. • The cold plates were studied experimentally and numerically. • Optimized cold plate significantly reduces pressure drop compared to traditional S-type design. This paper presents a novel biomimetic leaf vein-shaped (LVTB) cold plate structure. To enhance its cooling efficiency and heat dissipation performance, we performed topology optimization using maximum heat transfer and minimum fluid dissipation as objective functions, with the leaf vein-shaped flow channel as the initial solution. The effects of weight coefficients, Reynolds number, and volume fraction on the optimization results were analyzed, and the performance of the topology-optimized cold plate was compared with that of S-shaped flow and uniform topology cold plates. Compared to the S-shaped and uniform topology cold plates, the topology-optimized cold plate with the leaf vein design as the initial solution exhibited superior performance. The maximum temperature ( T max ) decreased by 0.5 °C and 1.4 °C, the average temperature ( T avg ) reduced by 0.08 °C and 0.72 °C, the temperature difference ( ΔT ) lowered by 0.07 °C and 0.25 °C, and the pressure drop ( Δp ) dropped by 11.66 kPa (92.76 %) and 0.1 kPa (9.9 %), respectively. An experimental platform for liquid cooling was set up to validate the performance of the optimized LVTB cold plate and the topology-optimized cold plate. These results demonstrate the superior heat dissipation performance of the topology-optimized structure based on the leaf vein-shaped channels and validate the accuracy of the numerical simulations. This provides strong support for further research and application in lithium-ion battery thermal management.