Battery Thermal 

Management Systems ‐
BTMS
Charging a battery electric vehicle (BEV)
Principles of a battery
Some batteries
Battery for a vehicle
 Some data for various batteries

Battery Type Specific energy Specific energy Energy density Cell Voltage V
J/kg Wh/kg Wh/liter

Lead-acid 145 000 41 100 2

Alkaline 400 000 110 320 1.2

Carbon-zinc 130 000 36 92 1.1

NiMH 340 000 95 300 1.2

NiCd 140 000 39 140 1.2

Lithium-ion 460 000 128 230 3.6

Battery Modeling and Simulations

•Estimation of Battery Performance
•Battery Design
•Thermal management
Why is thermal management needed?
• To keep the cells at a desired temperature level
Too hot: decreased battery life, decreased performance, risk of fire or explosion

• To minimize the cell‐to‐cell temperature variations
• To prevent the battery from going above or below acceptable limits
• To maximize the useful energy from cells and pack
• To use a small amount of energy for operation
Thermal Runaway
• A condition that is caused by a battery charging current or other 
process which produces more internal heat than the battery can 
dissipate

• Early Warnings?
increase in charge current at normal operation, increase in cell 
temperature over the ambient temperature
Thermal Runaway of batteries
Importance of temperature
On Battery Temperature
Optimum Temperature Range
Cooling systems in EV/HEV

Battery cooling system

Inverter cooling system
Motor cooling system
Electric/hybrid vehicles
Problems in the electric/electronic equipment cooling
Battery: Twork is 50-55 Ԩ, Tambient is 30-40 Ԩ,
Thus △Tbattery-ambient = 10-25 Ԩ,
It is difficult to cool the battery at a low △T.
Inverter: Heat flux is 150-200 W/cm2, Tjunction is 125 Ԩ.
It is hard to dissipate so high heat flux and keep Tjunction<
125 Ԩ
Motor: Without an appropriate cooling method, the motor
performance will decrease greatly.
Thus appropriate thermal management is a significant
issue for electric/electronic equipment in EV/HEV.
Example of thermal management
Direct Air Cooling
Direct Liquid cooling
Cold Plate Cooling
Indirect Liquid Cooling
Example of thermal management
Example of battery location in vehicle and 
thermal management
Using PCM (Phase Change Material) in Battery 
Thermal Management
 Battery cooling system

PCM is used to 
Passive thermal management-phase change surround the 
materials (PCM) as coolant array of cells
Battery discharge: Battery dissipates the heat to
PCM. Solid PCM becomes liquid, and stays
solid-liquid state.
Battery charge: Battery absorbs some heat from
PCM. Liquid PCM becomes solid.
Thus the function temperature of PCM should
be higher than the ambient temperature.
But it is lower than the battery working
temperature.
Battery cooling system
Passive thermal management
Active cooling (air): It can not keep 
the battery working temperature 
under 55 Ԩ

Passive cooling (PCM): The battery 
working temperature is kept under 
55Ԩ

Fig. 5. Cooling performance based on volume averaged cell temperature at 10 A.

Passive cooling (PCM) is more useful than the active cooling (air) to keep the
battery working temperature under 55 Ԩ (Sabbah R, 2008)
Drawback of the thermal management
• Increased  complexity
• Added cost
• Reduced Reliability
• Consumption of energy for operation
Processes needing consideration
• Heat and mass transport
• Charge transport
• Electrode kinetics
• Electrode‐electrolyte interfacial processes
Softwares for Battery Modeling
General Purpose Tools

• MATLAB
• COMSOL
• ANSYS

Customized tools

•Battery Design Studio
Heat Generation

where the first term is the heat generated by ohmic and other 
irreversible effects in the cell. The second term represents the heat 
generated or consumed because of the reversible entropy change due 
to the electrochemical reactions in the cell.