Active air cooling thermal management system based on U-shaped micro heat pipe array for lithium-ion battery

Abstract The performance of lithium-ion battery is greatly affected by temperature, so the battery module must be equipped with an effective thermal management system (TMS) during operation. In this study, a new type of active air cooling TMS based on U-shaped micro heat pipe array (MHPA) is developed to reduce a battery's temperature rise and improve the temperature uniformity of the battery module throughout the entire charge and discharge process. Modules with and without U-shaped MHPA are established for comparative experiments. They can dissipate heat in three methods, namely active air cooling with U-shaped MHPA (AAC-MHPA), passive air cooling with U-shaped MHPA (PAC-MHPA), and passive air cooling with no U-shaped MHPA (PAC-NMHPA). Results show that under 2C constant current charge and 3C constant current discharge conditions, the maximum instantaneous highest temperatures of AAC-MHPA and PAC-NMHPA are 51.70 °C and 57.83 °C, respectively. This outcome demonstrates that the thermal management performance of AAC-MHPA is the best. This cooling method has good thermal management performance even under high charge and discharge rates conditions.