Numerical Analysis of Electric Vehicle Battery Thermal Management using Nanofluid of Varying Concentrations

Abstract

Due to temperature sensitivity of lithium-ion batteries, thermal management is required for their optimal performance in electric vehicles. Nanofluids can be an effective alternative in place of conventional liquid coolants. Graphene oxide nanoparticles inside deionized water as base fluid were used to test the convective heat transfer rate and pressure drop across an electric vehicle battery cooling module. The flow rates across the module were varied for flows within a range of 3000 to 5000 Reynolds number. It was found that the cooling rates are sensitive to Reynolds number, type of coolant and nanoparticle fraction inside the base fluid. The findings were validated against data available in literature and the proposed cooling module was studied for overall thermal performance. It was found that for high Reynolds number of 5000, a superior Thermal Performance Factor (TPF) of 1.1 was obtained and the increase in thermal performance was not linearly correlated to the increase in Reynolds Number.