Abstract The safety, lifespan, and performance of battery systems in electric vehicles directly depend on the implementation of an effective thermal management strategy. In this study, a novel lithium ion battery thermal management system integrated with a wavy cooling channel and different numbers of thermoelectric modules is proposed. CFD based numerical simulations were conducted at two ambient temperatures (298.15 K and 303.15 K) and three different thermoelectric temperatures (288.15 K, 293.15 K, and 298.15 K). Three configurations with 4, 6, and 8 thermoelectric modules were analyzed and compared with the conventional case without thermoelectrics. The lowest maximum battery temperature was obtained with the design employing 8 thermoelectric modules under the conditions of 298.15 K ambient temperature and 288.15 K thermoelectric temperature. It was found that integrating thermoelectrics into the battery thermal management system reduced the maximum battery temperature by up to 12.11 K and the maximum temperature difference by up to 5.83 K. Furthermore, maintaining the thermoelectric temperature approximately 5-10 K below the ambient temperature was identified as a critical design parameter to ensure both efficient cooling and thermal homogeneity. The use of different numbers of thermoelectric modules and the selection of appropriate operating temperatures were shown to play a decisive role in optimizing system performance.
Volkan Tuğan (Thu,) studied this question.