b'Engineer Innovation | ElectronicsSamsung R&D Institute Delivering Safer more Efficient Battery PacksDeveloping a better thermal 18,650 cellsmanagement system ChannelThe use of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries has made the electric vehicle a reality, so we could see the widespread acceptance of electricCoolant flowmobility in the not-too-distant future. However, there have been more than aConduction few incidents of Li-ion batteries inelementelectric vehicles catching fire due toCoolant flowfaulty thermal management systems (TMS) or rough-driving abuse. ThisFigure 1: Geometry of the pack and the thermal management system.underscores the importance of finding new methods for effectively and accurately designing TMS that control(CFD) has evolved to become an temperature and optimize theeffective design and optimization tool performance of Li-ion batteries. to address thermal management problems.To address these challenges, the Samsung R&D Institute in Bangalore,For the large battery packs that India, in collaboration with theoperate at the high discharge rates Samsung Advanced Institute oftypically used in electric vehicles (EVs) Technology, Korea, recently presentedand hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), a novel, liquid-coolant-based TMS forCFD studies have shown that liquid large Li-ion battery packs. Theycooling is more effective than air constructed a coupled 3Dcooling, enabling the design of more electrochemical/thermal model of thecompact and efficient batteries.proposed battery pack. The simulation revealed that contact resistance hadPack geometry and experimental the greatest impact on the packssetupthermal performance. In the Li-ion battery pack presented in Figure 1, a commercially available The role of computational fluid18,650-cell Li-NCA/C battery was used. dynamics Elements made of highly conductive Considering the three-dimensionalmetal transferred heat from the nature of the flow around the cells in acylindrical cells to the coolant channel battery pack and the spatial varianceand, finally, to the coolant liquid (in involved in heat generation, thethis case, water). A test pack of 30 cells practice of simulating battery packswas fabricated, with six cells in series using computational fluid dynamicsand five cells in parallel (see Figure 1).The simulation revealed that contact resistance had the greatest impact on the packs thermal performance.68'