**Thermal Management**

**Chapter 7**

Provisional chapter

**Effectiveness of a Helix Tube to Water Cool a Battery**

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.74113

This chapter presents an investigation of the effectiveness of water cooling a battery module using a heat-sink prototype in the form of a thin copper helix tube within an aluminium block. A thermal model for the module containing six single cells is developed and numerically solved by coupling the heat energy transport equation with the fluid governing equations. The rate of generation of heat from the cells is calculated using a 2D model of a single cell with the resulting heat flux used as a Neumann boundary condition for the energy equation within a computational fluid dynamics code. Particular attention is given to the battery module operating in extreme ambient temperature conditions. The cooling strategy used is shown to satisfy two of the main concerns when managing the thermal performance of a battery module, that is, a suitable operating temperature range is maintained, and there is reasonable uniformity of temperature across the battery module. This should increase the battery cell life cycle together with enhancement of the charge and discharge performances. Variation of parameters such as the velocity of water

within the tube and the number of turns used for the helix were investigated.

Due to their outstanding properties regarding high energy density, power density, high service life, low self-discharge and rare pollution, the use of lithium ion batteries for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) shows excellent promise [1]. Battery charging and discharging are strongly coupled to the operating temperature with a higher temperature increasing the number of undesired reactions, that is, the decomposition of the

> © 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and eproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Keywords: Li-ion battery, convective heat transfer, clean energy

Effectiveness of a Helix Tube to Water Cool a Battery

**Module**

Module

Zhumabay Bakenov

Zhumabay Bakenov

Abstract

1. Introduction

Desmond Adair, Kairat Ismailov and

Desmond Adair, Kairat Ismailov and

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.74113

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

#### **Effectiveness of a Helix Tube to Water Cool a Battery Module** Effectiveness of a Helix Tube to Water Cool a Battery Module

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.74113

Desmond Adair, Kairat Ismailov and Zhumabay Bakenov Desmond Adair, Kairat Ismailov and Zhumabay Bakenov

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.74113

### Abstract

This chapter presents an investigation of the effectiveness of water cooling a battery module using a heat-sink prototype in the form of a thin copper helix tube within an aluminium block. A thermal model for the module containing six single cells is developed and numerically solved by coupling the heat energy transport equation with the fluid governing equations. The rate of generation of heat from the cells is calculated using a 2D model of a single cell with the resulting heat flux used as a Neumann boundary condition for the energy equation within a computational fluid dynamics code. Particular attention is given to the battery module operating in extreme ambient temperature conditions. The cooling strategy used is shown to satisfy two of the main concerns when managing the thermal performance of a battery module, that is, a suitable operating temperature range is maintained, and there is reasonable uniformity of temperature across the battery module. This should increase the battery cell life cycle together with enhancement of the charge and discharge performances. Variation of parameters such as the velocity of water within the tube and the number of turns used for the helix were investigated.

Keywords: Li-ion battery, convective heat transfer, clean energy
