Publication: Investigation of the effect of various fins arrangement on a minichannel liquid cold plate for battery thermal management system of electric vehicle
Date
2018
Authors
Jonathan Johnny Rajatin
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Abstract
In this globalized world today, there is a rapid rise in the use of electric vehicles as we go to a more environmentally friendly transportation mode. Electric vehicles come with a mobile battery that empowers it. An efficient cooling system for the battery therefore must be utilised to compensate with this rapid transportation technology evolution. Therefore, this study address to investigate the effect of three fins arrangement on the heat transfer of a mini channel liquid cold plate in a thermal battery management system of an electric vehicle. To initially look at this investigation, a comprehensive literature review has been established to enhance understanding of electric vehicle and its battery thermal management system. From the review, two significant objectives of investigation were established. First is to fabricate the liquid cold plate with oblique fins on the battery of electric car vehicle, a setup of apparatus and equipment was arranged in order to provide a basis for the experiment. Secondly, to investigate the effect of arrangement of oblique fins on the heat transfer and fluid flow for battery thermal management system of electric vehicle. To achieve these objectives, a comprehensive methodology was laid out. Three different fins arrangement which are the inline, incline and the louvered arrangement were initially arranged on the liquid cold plate subsequently. These arrangements were then sealed within the liquid cold plate and the experiment setup was done. The test section which is the liquid cold plate that contains the fin arrangements is sandwiched between two heating block that represents batteries. Next, the experimental setup consists of the coolant reservoir to store the coolant, a flowmeter to regulate the coolant flowrate, a condenser to cool the coolant, an ammeter and voltmeter to regulate the heat flux and a DAQPRO-5300 data logger which is connected to the eight thermocouples on the heating blocks to collect temperature data for analysation. The three arrangements were tested with increasing flow rate to obtain five important properties of heat transfer in each arrangement. Of all three arrangements, one clear fins arrangement comes out the best within the five defining properties. The louvered arrangement has the lowest cold plate surface temperature, highest coolant fluid temperature, highest heat transfer coefficient, highest Nusselt number and the highest heat transfer rate. The research gave a better understanding on the battery thermal management system of an electric vehicle in terms of heat transfer properties.
Description
TL220.J66 2018
Keywords
Electric vehicle