Experimental investigation on energy consumption of power battery integrated thermal management system

The mileage range of electric vehicles is still restricted incredibly due to the limitation of the onboard battery energy and long charging time; therefore, a comprehensive energy consumption optimization of the thermal management system is necessary to guarantee the normal use of electric vehicles. A test bench of integrated battery thermal management system for pure electrical transportation vehicles is established in this study. The optimal thermal management strategy is developed based on analyzing the energy-saving potential of thermal management components. When the battery system operates under real-vehicle operating conditions at representative ambient temperatures, the thermal management system characteristics applied to the proposed strategy are validated and analyzed. The experimental tests show that the proposed thermal management strategy can effectively reduce the energy consumption of the thermal management system under the premise that the battery temperature is controlled within the appropriate range, compared with the prototype vehicle.