Influence of PCM configuration and optimization of PCM proportion on the thermal management of a prismatic battery with a combined PCM and air cooling structure

Different configurations and proportion of phase change material (PCM) have a vital impact on the thermal performance of the battery thermal management system (BTMS). In this work, the thermal performance of the battery pack is investigated by a combined PCM and air cooling technique. Firstly, four cases of PCM configuration are proposed to investigate the heat dissipation performance. Then PCM proportion is optimized to obtain better temperature uniformity, smaller energy loss and smaller amount of PCM based on Case 4. Finally, subjected to the installation space constraint of battery box (smaller volume), Case 5 is designed to diminish the volume of battery box and the corresponding thermal performance is discussed. The results show that thermal performance with PCM is superior than that without PCM; Case 4 not only enhances the thermal performance but also reduces the amount of PCM; The optimized PCM proportion is only 64 %; Compared with all PCM, the optimized Delta T, Delta P and PCM volume respectively reduce 11.91 % (0.83 K), 11.61 % (4.18 Pa) and 43.06 % (215,544 mm3); Case 5 not only shows more better thermal performance than Case 4 but also reduces 102,200 mm3 (3.48 %) volume of the battery box. The proposed strategy is effective for improving thermal performance of BTMS and saving the amount of PCM.