Environmental concerns, resource depletion, energy security, technological advancements, and global policies are just a few of the variables influencing the global energy perspective. In the case of technological advancement, lithium batteries play a key role in the development of a more sustainable energy infrastructure. The high energy density and long lifespan of lithium batteries make them ideal for usage in a broad range of applications, such as portable electronics, electric vehicles, and grid-scale energy storage for renewable energy sources. However, there are certain possible concerns regarding the safe operation and performance of lithium batteries, most of which are associated with the temperature sensitivity of lithium batteries. Hence, battery thermal management systems are an essential component of a battery package for regulating the temperature level in lithium batteries to avoid the aging process, poor performance, and safety issues.  

Many studies have been conducted to develop battery thermal management systems with improved cooling performance. Within this framework, Paper A in this licentiate thesis considers how the design of a lithium battery cell may be improved to reduce the thermal load on the thermal management system. An analytical model based on the integral transform technique is developed to accurately and efficiently predict the thermal behavior of a cylindrical lithium battery cell. Following model validation, the thermal behavior of cylindrical lithium-ion battery cells with different jelly-roll layers and can sizes are compared. The results demonstrate that 21700 cylindrical battery cells outperform other types of cylindrical battery cells in terms of thermal performance. Furthermore, the thermally optimal thicknesses for positive active material, negative active material, positive current collector, and negative current collector are 180, 34, 21, and 20 um, respectively.

After learning about design considerations to reduce thermal issues in lithium-ion battery cells and developing a proper tool for further studies, the focus was set on the flow behavior surrounding a cylindrical battery cell in an air-based cooling system. The cooling system under consideration is a wall-bounded cross-flow heat exchanger, the most common air-based cooling system for battery applications. Despite the importance of the cooling system in battery safety, few studies have been conducted to investigate the thermo-flow characteristics of wall-bounded cross-flow heat exchangers. Hence, in the battery research field, it is common to estimate the performance of wall-bounded cross-flow heat exchangers using the thermal characteristics of free cross-flow heat exchangers due to their geometrical similarities. In Paper B, this assumption is scrutinized by comparing the thermo-fluid characteristics of free and wall-bounded cross-flow heat exchangers. According to the results, flow through both heat exchangers shows almost similar thermo-fluid behavior in areas sufficiently far from the bounding walls. A turbulence model study suggests that the k-kl-omega transition model is a time-efficient and reliable turbulence model for capturing thermo-fluid characteristics in such heat exchangers. Moreover, it is observed that the two different heat exchangers have an almost identical area-averaged heat transfer rate despite the local changes in Nusselt number along the height of cells. This finding shows that it is possible to do two-dimensional simulations for applications that only require an area-averaged heat transfer rate on the battery cells.

The findings in Paper A and Paper B may be used to investigate the cooling performance of a battery thermal management system with a practical design. Hence, in Paper C, a comprehensive yet simplified model is developed that can be used to study the thermal field of lithium battery cells in a large-scale air-based battery thermal management system. The model consists of the CFD model derived in Paper B, which predicts the flow behavior around cells in the inner region of the battery package, and the analytical model described in Paper A, which determines the thermal field within the battery cells. The area-averaged heat transfer coefficient interconnects the models, and a system of equations is employed to estimate the row-to-row variation of the thermal field. The model is employed to assess the effect of transverse and longitudinal pitch ratios on the thermal performance of an air-based battery thermal management system used in a hybrid electric vehicle.