Lightweight power battery modules with outstanding thermal performance are urgently required given the rapid development of electric vehicles. This study proposes a composite phase change material coupled with forced convection as an integrated thermal management system (ITMS) with the aim to control the temperature’s rising tendency and maintain the temperature distribution uniformly within an appropriate range among the battery modules. The thermal behavior effects of airflow rates on the thermal management system were investigated in detail by combining experiments and numerical simulations. Comparisons were conducted between an air cooling system with an optimum flow rate and the ITMS. Experimental results revealed that the cooling effect of the ITMS was better than that of the forced cooling system at a 3 m/s airflow rate. The maximum temperature in the designed battery module was limited to 63.2°C. The maximum temperature difference was limited to 4.8°C at a 4 C discharge rate. This research indicates that the ITMS is an effective and optimized approach to control and balance the temperature among battery modules, thereby providing engineers with design optimization strategies for similar systems.

中文翻译：

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相变材料锂离子电池模块集成热管理系统的实验与数值研究

随着电动汽车的快速发展，迫切需要具有出色热性能的轻量化动力电池模块。本研究提出了一种与强制对流相结合的复合相变材料作为集成热管理系统（ITMS），旨在控制温度的上升趋势并使电池模块之间的温度分布均匀地保持在适当的范围内。通过结合实验和数值模拟，详细研究了气流速率对热管理系统的热行为影响。在具有最佳流速的空气冷却系统和 ITMS 之间进行了比较。实验结果表明，在 3 m/s 的气流速率下，ITMS 的冷却效果优于强制冷却系统。设计的电池模块的最高温度限制在 63.2°C。在 4 C 的放电速率下，最大温差被限制在 4.8°C。该研究表明，ITMS 是一种有效且优化的方法来控制和平衡电池模块之间的温度，从而为工程师提供类似系统的设计优化策略。