Temporal and spatial temperature variations can negatively affect the performance, lifetime, and safety of Lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles. Air-cooled thermal management systems offer advantages in durability and simplicity. Here, we demonstrate a novel air-cooled system in which cooling features are integrated directly into the prismatic battery cells. When cells are stacked in a battery module, the topographic features integrated into the battery case contact each other and provide mechanical resistance against deformation due to internal battery pressure as well as form a plurality of cooling channels. A series of finite element analyses and conjugate heat transfer analyses are performed to identify the optimal geometric parameters for the design concept under consideration of both battery cell internal pressure and thermal loading. For a wide spacing between fins, the cooling efficiency is high when battery internal pressure is absent but low in the presence of cell deformation due to battery internal pressure. As the number of additional fins is increased, the effect of deformation on cooling performance decreases. Consequently, there exists an optimal number of cooling fins. The utilization of tapered channels and the addition of secondary fins provides additional and significant improvements in temperature uniformity, however at cost of increased pressure drop and maximum temperature compared with the design of parallel channels. This study seeks to make two contributions. One contribution is a fundamental one in heat transfer. It addresses the performance of heat sinks under consideration of mechanical deformation of the heat sink. The other contribution is related to battery thermal management. It describes a novel approach to establish an effective cooling system for battery cells in battery packs with forced air cooling.

时空温度变化会对电动汽车中使用的锂离子电池的性能，使用寿命和安全性产生负面影响。风冷热管理系统在耐用性和简便性方面具有优势。在这里，我们演示了一种新颖的风冷系统，其中的冷却功能直接集成到棱柱形电池中。当将电池堆叠在电池模块中时，集成到电池盒中的形貌特征彼此接触，并提供抵抗由于内部电池压力引起的变形的机械阻力，并形成多个冷却通道。进行了一系列有限元分析和共轭传热分析，以在考虑电池内部压力和热负荷的情况下确定设计概念的最佳几何参数。对于散热片之间的较大间距，当电池内部压力不存在时，冷却效率较高，而在由于电池内部压力而导致电池变形的情况下，冷却效率较低。随着附加鳍片数量的增加，变形对冷却性能的影响减小。因此，存在最佳数量的散热片。锥形通道的利用和辅助散热片的使用在温度均匀性方面提供了其他的显着改善，但是与并行通道的设计相比，其代价是增加了压降和最高温度。这项研究试图做出两个贡献。一种贡献是传热中的基础性贡献。它考虑了散热器的机械变形，从而解决了散热器的性能问题。其他贡献与电池热管理有关。它描述了一种新颖的方法，可通过强制空气冷却为电池组中的电池组建立有效的冷却系统。