Experimental Investigation of Air Cooling With/Out Tab Cooling in Cell and Module Levels for Thermal Uniformity in Battery Packs

Catastrophic effects of global warming and environmental pollution are becoming more evident each day, and reduction in fossil fuel consumption is an urgent need. Thus, electric vehicles powered by sustainable energy sources are becoming a major interest. However, there are some challenges such as safety, limited range, long charging times, and battery life which are inhibitory to the adaptation of them. One of the biggest reasons for these challenges is the relationship between battery degradation and temperature which can be eliminated if batteries can be kept at the optimum temperature range. Here, the effects of three distinct (natural convection, forced convection, and tab cooling) methodology were experimentally compared at both the cell and module levels (six serial 7.5 Ah Kokam pouch cells, 1P6S) for thermal management of lithium-ion cells. The experiments were conducted at a discharge rate of 3C with ambient temperatures of 24 °C and 29 °C. The cell-level test results show that the tab cooling yields 32.5% better thermal uniformity in comparison to the other techniques. Furthermore, tab cooling yields better temperature uniformity with and without air convection as the hot spots occurring near the tabs is eliminated. For the module level, the forced air convection method stands out as the best option with a 4.3% temperature deviation between cells and maximum cell temperature of 39 °C. Overall, the results show that a hybrid approach with tab cooling would be beneficial in terms of temperature homogeneity especially in high capacity electric vehicle battery cells.