This study numerically investigates thermal management of air-cooled cylindrical lithium-ion battery modules under high-rate C8 (44 A) cycling. Eighteen configurations—combining aligned and staggered arrays with and without a 2-mm copper porous layer (85% porosity, 0.43 mm pore size)—are simulated using the k–ω SST turbulence model and Local Thermal Non-Equilibrium porous media formulation. Time- and temperature-dependent heat generation, validated against available data, is applied over four charge–discharge–rest cycles (1800s total). Results show that aligned layouts without porous layers perform poorly (AS1: 314.09 K; AS2: Δ T = 9.68 K). Introducing porous media significantly improves aligned performance: AP4 achieves 309.44 K and 22.57 W heat removal. Staggered arrangements further enhance cooling via turbulence, with SP3 (staggered + porous) yielding the lowest temperature (308.40 K) and highest heat removal (24.37 W), but at a high pressure drop (24.32 Pa vs. 0.28 Pa for AS1). A thermal–hydraulic efficiency coefficient, balancing heat transfer against pumping power, identifies SS2 (staggered, non-porous) as the optimal design ( η = 1.473). The findings demonstrate that porous layers benefit aligned configurations but reduce efficiency in staggered ones due to excessive flow resistance, underscoring the need for geometry-specific thermal management strategies. . Keywords: Lithium-ion batteries, Porous layers, Staggered and aligned arrangement, Efficiency coefficient.
Taghilou et al. (Thu,) studied this question.