Flow Through Battery Bank

This is an overview of the approach taken to determine the temperature of the battery bank
as a function of time.

1 Initial Parameters
1.1 Battery Fluid Parameters
• µb - dynamic viscosity of battery fluid

• ρb - density of battery fluid

• P rb - prandlt number of the fluid at a given temperature

• P rbs - prandlt number of the fluid at the surface temperature of the battery

• kb - conductive heat transfer coefficient of the battery fluid

• Cpb - specific heat of battery fluid

• Vb - velocity of the battery fluid

1.2 Heat Exchanger Fluid Parameters

• µe - dynamic viscosity of heat exchanger fluid

• ρe - density of heat exchanger fluid

• Cpe - specific heat of the battery fluid

• P re - prandlt number of the heat exchanger fluid

• ke - conductive heat transfer coefficient of the heat exchanger fluid

• Ve - velocity of the exchanger fluid

• ṁe - mass flow rate of the heat exchanger fluid

• Tei - Temperature of the heat exchanger inlet fluid

1.3 Battery Geometry Parameters

• Bd - diameter of the battery

• Bh - height of the battery

• Pb - battery output

• AT - spacing of batteries

• ST - spacing of batteries between center points

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 • Bm - battery mass

• Bc p - specific heat of the battery material

• Brow - number of battery rows

• Bcol - number of battery columns

• BA(t) - total surface area of all batteries

• BA(i) - individual surface area of a battery

1.4 Battery Geometry Parameters

• Ed - diameter of the heat exchanger pipe

• EA - area of the heat exchanger

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2 Calculation
First the maximum flow velocity through the battery inlet can be calculated as.
ST
Vmax(b) = × Vb (1)
ST − Bd
From this, the mass flow rate through the battery array can be determined by fist calculating
the inlet area of the battery bank, by removing the area of the batteries.

Abi = (Bcol + 1) × AT × Bh (2)

ṁb = ρe × Abi × Vmax (3)

Next the reynolds number can be calculated for the fluid, this will then be used to calculate
the subsequent nusselt number used to determine the convective heat transfer coefficient of
the fluid.
Vmax(b) ρb Bd
Reb = (4)
µb
Similarly the reynolds number for the heat exchanger fluid can be found by the following.
Vmax(e) ρe Ed
Ree = (5)
µe
Based on boundary conditions which effect reynolds number, the nusselt number will vary for
both the heat exchanger and the battery bank, however the generalized heat convection
coefficient, can be given by the following.
N ub kb
hb = (6)
Bd
N ue ke
he = (7)
Ed

3 Iterative Solution
The following section outlines the iterative solution of the problem in Matlab, this is to
determine the transient behavior of the battery surface temperature. For this case I have
taken a battery towards the back side of the heat exchanger to illustrate the worst case
scenario. The following shows an outline of the problem.

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 Heat Exchanger

Tube Bank of Batteries

Figure 1: General layout of the idealized tube bank

For each time step the following is calculated:

First the heat exchanger effectiveness needs to be determined , using the NTU method.
1
U= 1 1 (8)
hb
+ he

Cc = ṁe Cpe (9)

Ch = ṁb Cpb (10)

Cmin = Cc | CC < Ch (11)

Cmin
Cr = (12)
Cmax
U EA
NT U = (13)
Cmin
1 − exp(−N T U (1 − Cr ))
= (14)
1 − Cr exp(−N T U (1 − Cr ))
From this we can then start to calculate the battery exit temperature.

−BA(t) hb
 
Texit = Tsurf ace(step−1) − (Tsurf ace(step−1) − Tinlet(step−1) )exp (15)
ṁb Cpb
From this we can then determine the transient response of the battery surface as.

Tsurf ace − Texit(step−1) −kb BA(i)

 
= exp t (16)
Tsurf ace(i) − Texit(step−1) Bm Bcp
Now as the surface temperature also varies as a function of time, due to the power output of
the battery. Equation 16 can be re-written as the following

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 Q = Bm Bcp ∆T (17)

Q
t= (18)
Pb
Pb t
∴ ∆T = (19)
Bm Bcp
Pb t
∴ Tsurf ace(i) = + Tsurf ace(previous−step) (20)
Bm Bcp
Plugging this back into Equation 16 yields the following.
−hb BA(i)
  
Pb t
Tsurf ace = exp t + Tsurf ace(step−1) − Texit(step−1) + Texit(step−1) (21)
Bm Bcp Bm Bcp
To determine the new inlet temp, the exit temp is passed through the heat exchanger. The
following outlines the methodology.

q =  Cmin (Texit − Tei ) (22)

q
Tinlet = Texit − (23)
Cmin

4 Results