Investigation of thermal management for lithium-ion pouch battery module based on phase change slurry and mini channel cooling plate

In this paper, the thermal management based on phase change slurry (PCS) and mini channel cooling plate for the lithium-ion pouch battery module was proposed. The three-dimensional thermal model was established and the optimum structure of the cooling plate with mini channel was designed with the orthogonal matrix experimental method to balance the cooling performance and energy consumption. The simulation results showed that the cooling performance of PCS consisting of 20% n-octadecane microcapsules and 80% water was better than that of pure water, glycol solution and mineral oil, when the mass flow rate was less than 3 × 10⁻⁴ kg s⁻¹. For different concentrations of PCS, if the mass flow rate exceeded the critical value, its cooling performance was worse than that of pure water. When the cooling target for battery maximum temperature was higher than 309 K, the PCS cooling with appropriate microcapsule concentration had the edge over in energy consumption compared with water cooling. At last, the dimensionless empirical formula was obtained to predict the effect of the PCS's physical parameters and flow characteristics on the heat transfer and cooling performance. The simulation results will be useful for the design of PCS based battery thermal management systems.