A new battery thermal management system employing the mini-channel cold plate with pin fins

• Pin fins are introduced into mini-channel cold plate for battery thermal management. • Efficiency index is used as an overall evaluation of cooling performance. • The effects of arrangement and layout of pin fins on the performance is studied. • Mini-channel cold plates with pin fins achieve better efficiency index. Batteries are critical for energy storage and electrical vehicles. In this study, a new battery thermal management system (BTMS) is proposed by employing a mini-channel cold plate with pin fins. The performance of BTMS is evaluated by a 3D numerical model. The heat transfer characteristics, pressure loss and flow structure in the BTMS are analyzed, and the performance of BTMS is evaluated using efficiency index ( EI ) which considers both heat transfer performance and pressure loss. It is found that pin fins can improve the heat transfer performance of BTMS with acceptable pressure loss. Therefore, the EI of BTMS with pin fins is always greater than 1. It is also found that the BTMS with 4 × 3 staggered arranged pin fins outperforms that with the 3 × 4 staggered arrangement and 4 × 4 inline arrangement in EI . Although the horizontally arranged pin fins greatly enhances heat transfer, the pressure loss by the pin fins is also significant. As a result, EI of BTMS with vertically arranged pin fins was 4.54% higher than that of BTMS with horizontally arranged pin fins.