Applied Thermal Engineering 197 (2021) 117398

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Applied Thermal Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

A new design for hybrid cooling of Li-ion battery pack utilizing PCM and
mini channel cold plates
Sepehr Mousavi , Majid Siavashi *, Amirhosein Zadehkabir
Applied Multi-Phase Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, School of Mechanical Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: By the growing applications of lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles, the need to develop highly efficient and
Battery thermal management improved battery cooling systems has become significantly important. In this paper, a novel battery thermal
Mini-channel management system (BTMS) for cooling of battery pack, using phase change materials (PCM) and mini-channel
Cold-plate
cold plates (MCPs), has been designed and numerically studied. Each battery module includes five prismatic Li-
Phase change material
Li-ion battery
ion battery, sandwiched between cold plates. Also, the effect of battery module orientation on the cooling
Heat generation performance of BTMS has been investigated. A new type of cold plate, named as hybrid mini-channel cold
plates (HMCPs) has also been designed by adding PCM (n-eicosane) inside the cold plates. The performances of
the two mentioned types of cold plates have been studied and compared under constant and pulsed heat
generation. The results showed that the battery orientation significantly affected the BTMS performance.
Therefore, it was observed that the maximum temperature in the battery packs was 30 K lower in the optimum
orientation. Under the constant heat generation, the temporal average of the maximum battery temperature in
hybrid cooling system was decreased by 10.35 K compared to the active cooling. However, under multiple
pulsed heat generation, the difference in temporal averages of maximum temperature was less than 1 K be­
tween the two cooling systems.

amount of heat generation. Therefore the cooling systems must be

1. Introduction
By the continuous advancements of electrical devices, their demand
for higher power sources increases consequently. Among various types
of batteries, lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries have gained more attention in
the past years–especially in electric vehicles (EVs) [1]. The emergence of
EV demands high-performance batteries. However, these batteries are
subjected to causing thermal runaway and leading to unexpected severe
explosions [2]. Managing the heat generated by electrical components
has always been an important element of electrical design. The lifetime
and efficiency of the batteries are directly influenced by their opera­
tional temperature [3]. In this regard, Panchal et al. [4] conducted
electrochemical thermal modeling of lithium-ion batteries during
discharge. They studied the variations in the battery temperature in a
variety of discharge rates. As a result, it is of high importance to main­
tain the battery temperature within the safe operating range. Thus, more
advanced cooling techniques are required to maintain the battery tem­
perature at the desired range. The critical situation when the heat
dissipation becomes crucial is the time of high operational rate
(charging/discharging) [5], where the battery is subjected to a high
designed to be able to dissipate the heat at the critical rate.
Various methods of thermal management have been recently
introduced for battery thermal management systems (BTMSs) [6]. The
cooling systems consist of a wide variety of materials and methods
which generally fall into two main categories: passive or active. Active
thermal management refers to cooling technologies that receive energy
– typically from an external device – to mitigate the temperature in­
crease [7]. These methods benefit from the advantage of high capacity
for heat removal, while their drawback is their need to receive energy
in order to operate as well as having high system complexity and
maintenance cost. Methods such as forced air and forced liquid cooling
[4,8], liquid evaporation, and thermoelectric cooling [9] are examples
of active thermal management. In a study in National Renewable En­
ergy Lab (USA), Chen et al. [10] investigated the thermal performances
of different cooling methods, compared in the same added volume.
They developed electrochemical-thermal models of four cooling
methods. The results showed that the air cooling system needed 2 to 3
times more energy than the other methods –including liquid cool­
ing–for the same average battery temperature. The generated heat in
cylindrical batteries in Tesla model S and the pouch cell batteries in

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: msiavashi@iust.ac.ir (M. Siavashi).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2021.117398
Received 23 May 2021; Received in revised form 15 July 2021; Accepted 27 July 2021
Available online 2 August 2021
1359-4311/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
S. Mousavi et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 197 (2021) 117398

Nomenclature β Thermal expansion coefficient, K− 1

ΔH Enthalpy, kJkg− 1
Amush Mushy zone constant Δt Time-step, s
1
cp Specific heat at constant pressure, Jkg− 1 K− μ Dynamic viscosity, Pa.s
fl Liquid fraction
g Gravitational acceleration, ms− 2 Subscripts
H Total enthalpy, kJkg− 1 B Battery
h Sensible enthalpy, kJkg− 1 pcm Phase change material
S Aluminum
hsl Latent heat of fusion, kJkg− 1
W Water
k Thermal conductivity, W.m− 1 K− 1
P Pressure, Pa Acronyms
Qgen Heat generation rate, W.m− 3 BTMS Battery Thermal Management System
T Temperature, K EV Electric Vehicle
u Velocity component in x direction, ms− 1 HMCP Hybrid Mini-channel Cold Plate
v Velocity component in y direction, ms− 1 MCP Mini-channel Cold Plate
w Velocity component in z direction, ms− 1 PCM Phase Change Material
PRESTO Pressure Staggering Options
Greek symbols SIMPLE Semi Implicit Method for Pressure Linked Equations
3
ρ Density, kgm−

high latent heat storage capability [19,20]. A wide variety of phase

Fig. 1. Assembly of the battery modules and cold plates.
Nissan Leaf are dissipated by liquid cooling and air cooling, respec­
tively [11,12]. Xu et al. [11] studied the optimization opportunities of
Tesla EV battery cooling containing more than 7000 battery cells based
on water cooling. They investigated the geometric optimization of
liquid flow path and compared the performances of U-shaped and
serpentine cooling channels and achieved improvements in tempera­
ture profile and 7.49% reduction in the maximum temperature.
On the other hand, passive thermal management mostly refers to the
methods that do not depend on the energy from other power units and
operate autonomously [13]. Heat spreaders, heat pipes [14], and phase
change materials (PCMs) are examples of such methods [15,16]. The
advantage of passive methods over active systems is their low operation
and overall cost as well as being noise-free, and having small size and
weight [17,18]. As a passive method of cooling, phase change materials
(PCMs) are widely studied in electric devices and batteries due to their
Table 1
Thermophysical properties of batteries [45] and aluminum [46].
Density Specific heat capacity Thermal conductivity k
ρ(kg/m3) cp (J/(kg.K)) (W/(m.K))
Battery 1700 830 k(in− plane) = 34
k(through− plane) = 3.4
Aluminium 2719 871 202.4
change materials have been explored and studied for different applica­
tions with melting temperatures ranging from room temperature to
about 900 ◦ C [21]. Safdari et al. [22] numerically studied the different
configurations of PCM heat sinks in addition to air cooling systems in
battery modules. They studied three different enclosure cross-sections as
circular, rectangular, and hexagonal. By dominating the latent heat
cooling, the circular cross-section was observed to be the best. However,
in high heat rates, the rectangular shape performed more efficiently
compared to other configurations. Heyhat et al. [23] studied the per­
formance enhancement of PCMs in a BTMS using metal foam, fins, and
nanoparticles. It was observed that the foam-PCM composite had a
better performance in comparison to nano-PCM and fin-PCM. However,
the delay in the melting initiation in foam-PCM was reported as a
negative effect for battery cooling.
Despite having the advantage of high latent heat capacity, the total
absorbed heat amount of PCMs is limited due to their total volume and is
up to a certain amount (e.g., up to complete meltdown). Due to these
limitations, it is usually unsuitable to use PCMs as the only option for
battery thermal management. Therefore, it is recommended to utilize a
hybrid method of thermal management in presence of active cooling
systems such as forced and natural air- cooling [22,24] and liquid-
cooling [25,26]. Sunku Prasad et al. [27] numerically compared the
performance of conventional a air-cooled heat sink, a PCM heat sink,
and a hybrid heat sink. According to the results, the base temperature of
the PCM heat sink was similar to the conventional heat sink before the
complete meltdown, however, it increased significantly after the PCM
complete meltdown. Moreover, the required time for complete solidifi­
cation of the PCM heat sink was 101 min, while it was 27 min for the
hybrid heat sink.
As an active method of battery thermal management, mini-channel
cold plates (MCPs) have been extensively studied in the literature
[28,29]. MCPs include several mini-channels placed within a high
thermal conductive plate [30]. In this method, heat is transferred to the
battery and the cold plate interface, then it is dissipated by the coolant
through the mini-channels. The advantages of MCPs –including high
cooling capacity, low weight, compactness, and long durability– have
made them suitable for battery cooling, especially prismatic Li-ion
batteries [31]. The geometry and physical configurations of mini
channels are among the studied parameters in order to achieve an
optimal performance [32]. The most commonly studied parameters of
mini channels are cross-sectional shape [33,34], aspect ratio [35],

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S. Mousavi et al.
Fig. 2. Three battery module orientations (a) case 1, with 18 mini-channels (b) case 2, with 7 mini-channels (c) case 3, with 18 mini-channels.
hydraulic diameter [36], inlet and outlet configurations [37], and
presence of unconventional shapes such as pin-fins and wavy channels
[38,39] as well as the coolant properties and Reynolds number [40].
Yang et al. [41] developed a numerical model of mini-channel cold
plates in different configurations for optimization of BTMS. They
compared the performances of straight mini-channels and fractal mini-
channels with hexagonal shapes. They used water as the coolant in­
side aluminum mini-channels. It was observed that the surface tem­
perature was reduced by 16.4 K in fractal mini-channels compared to
straight mini-channels. However, the pressure drop parameter­
–introduced as friction factor–was increased by up to 400% in fractal
mini-channels due to secondary flow and fluid mixing. Sheng et al. [42]
conducted a numerical work, studying the effects of flow rate, flow di­
rection, and channel width on battery temperature in Li-ion BTMS. Their
research involved studying the coolant inlet and outlet locations as an
important parameter determining the cell temperature distribution.
Also, the flow rate was observed to affect the maximum temperature,
while having little impact on temperature distribution. Besides, the
pressure drop was observed to be highly dependent on the channel
aspect ratio. However, the maximum temperature experienced minus­
cule changes by channel aspect ratio. Despite the extensive research
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Applied Thermal Engineering 197 (2021) 117398
works on BTMSs, still many novel innovations have been introduced and
studied in recent papers.
Battery cooling is also affected by the orientation and location of cold
plates in respect to the battery cells. Battery cells have been reported to
have non-isotropic conduction coefficients [43]. In other words, the
conduction coefficients are unequal in three main directions. In this
regard, it is a matter of interest to study this parameter on the thermal
performance of MCPs. However, few studies have focused on this aspect
of MCPs. Sheng et al. [44] studied the performance of cold plates in
lateral planes with small surface area and top/bottom planes with
maximum area. They also suggested a glycol aqueous solution as an
optimized coolant and replacement to water. It was observed that
despite having minimum surface area, lateral cold plates performed
similar to the other ones. It was generally due to the high conduction
coefficient normal to the lateral plates.
Different models for battery thermal management systems have been
investigated in previous research works; however, there are limited
studies regarding the effect of battery cell orientation on temperature
profile and performance of the cooling system. In most cases, the battery
thermal management systems have been studied in constant heat gen­
eration rates; while it is vital to conduct investigations regarding the
S. Mousavi et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 197 (2021) 117398

Fig. 3. (a) Active cooling MCP (b) Cut-section of HMCP (c) detailed dimentions in HMCP.

effective latent thermal capacity of the mini-channel cold plates.

Table 2 Therefore, a new MCP is designed by adding PCM (n-eicosane) to the
Thermophysical properties of n-eicosane PCM and water [23,46]. MCP, named as hybrid mini-channel cold plate (HMCP). First the effect
Solid PCM (at Liquid PCM (at Water of battery module orientation between cold plates is investigated. Then
298.15 K) 323.15 K) the efficiency and performance of BTMS with the two types of cold plates
Density, ρ(kg/m3) 910 769 997.5 in constant and pulsed thermal loads are demonstrated and compared.
Latent heat of fusion, hsl (kJ⁄ 248 – –
kg) 2. Problem description
Melting point, Tmelt (K) 309.55 – –
Specific heat capacity, cp (J⁄ 1926 2400 4179 Commonly, tens of battery cells are required to supply enough en­
(kg.K)) ergy for electric vehicles. These battery cells are placed in parallel and
Thermal conductivity, k (W/ 0.423 0.146 0.613 series arrangements based on the required voltage and current. The
(m.K))
4
arrangement of battery cells in this study is shown in Fig. 1. The green
Thermal expansion 8.161 × 10−
color represents the battery modules, while the gray color shows the
– –
coefficient, β (1⁄K)
cold plates. Each battery module consists of 5Li-ion battery cells each of
size (14 mm × 100 mm × 180 mm) [30] sandwiched between two MCPs.
performance of cooling systems in transient and pulsed heat generation The battery tabs are not taken into account in the current modeling.
rates which are closest to the actual operational conditions. This study The thermophysical properties of the batteries are presented in
shows that the results for the two conditions of constant and pulsed heat Table 1. All properties of batteries are isotropic except the thermal
rate are different. As it is mentioned, a wide range of studies have been conductivity. Thermal conductivity of the batteries is smaller in the
dedicated to the geometric optimisation of the cold plates. Besides, thickness direction in comparison to width and longitudinal direction
before the current study no attempt had been made to enhance the [45]. The other properties of similar batteries such as cathode and anode
materials are provided in [5].

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S. Mousavi et al.
Fig. 4. (a, b) Computational domain (Top and bottom surfaces are adiabatic, while all other boundaries are assumed to be symmetrical), (c) picture of the
generated mesh.
The orientation of battery modules influences the thermal manage­
ment performance. In this regard, firstly the configuration of the battery
modules between cold plates has been investigated. Three different
configurations of battery modules, studied in this research, are shown in
Fig. 2. As it is shown, the size and the number of mini-channels are
different in the configurations. However, the size of the channel cross-
section and materials are similar. MCPs are made of aluminum with
physical properties provided in Table 1.
In this research, a new type of MCP containing PCM (n-eicosane)
called hybrid mini-channel cold plates (HMCPs) is designed and studied.
By adding the latent heat capacity to the cold plates, their heat dissi­
pation performance enhances accordingly. A schematic and physical
dimensions of these plates are shown in Fig. 3. Furthermore, the ther­
mophysical properties of n-eicosane are provided in Table 2. According
to Table 2, PCM properties are considered to be constant in each phase
except dynamic viscosity which is calculated by [47]:
( )
μ = 9 × 10− 4 T 2 − 0.6529T + 119.94 × 10− 3 (1)
According to the geometry of the problem, in order to reduce the
computational costs, it is possible to simulate the half channel of the
MCPs. It can be inferred that the maximum battery temperature is
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Applied Thermal Engineering 197 (2021) 117398
observed along the center line. The computational domain and generated
mesh are demonstrated in Fig. 4. According to Fig. 4 and considerations
of this study, the boundary conditions in computational domain on left,
right, front and back sides are asummed to be symmetric. Moreover, the
top and bottom sides are adiabatic. Also, the fluid flow is upwards with
inlet and outlet conditions at the mini-channels considered as velocity
inlet and pressure outlet, respectively to provide a constant flow inside
the mini-channels. The initial domain temperature is 298.15 K and the
water is flowing inside the channel with 298.15 K temperature.
A battery’s charge and discharge rates are controlled by battery C-
rates. The battery C-rate is a measurement of the current in which a
battery is charged and discharged with respect to its nominal capacity.
The capacity of a battery is commonly rated at 1C, meaning that a fully
charged battery rated at 1 Ah should provide 1 A for one hour. The
same battery discharging at 0.5C should provide 500 mA for two hours,
and at 2C it delivers 2 A for 30 min. If the batteries are discharged by
the rate of 1-3C, the heat generation may vary between 17 and 3600
kW/m3 depending on the energy left inside the batteries [30]. In this
paper, the transient and constant heat generation rates are between 50
and 800 kW/m3.
S. Mousavi et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 197 (2021) 117398

Fig. 6. The variations of liquid fraction in the present study, experimental data
of Jones et al. [50] and numerical results of Muhammad et al. [47].

Fig. 5. (a) Mesh independence and (b) Time-step independence study for the
maximum battery temperature and PCM liquid fraction for case 1 in Q = 400
kW/m3, Vin = 0.01 m/s, and t = 340 s.

3. Mathematical formulation Fig. 7. The variations of the maximum battery temperature in current study
and the results of Amalesh and Narasimhan [46], and Liu et al. [30].
The coolant flow is assumed to be steady state, incompressible and
laminar. Radiative heat losses are negligible, and contact resistances are
ignored. The governing equations are provided in this section. ▪ Energy equation for solid regions [45]:
o Aluminium:
▪ Mass continuity equation [46]: ∂TS
ρS cpS = kS ∇2 TS (5)
∂ ∂ ∂ ∂t
(ρu) + (ρν) + (ρw) = 0 (2)
∂x ∂y ∂z
o Battery:
▪ Conservation of momentum equation for fluid region [46]: ∂( )
( → ) ρ cpB T = ∇.(kB ∇T) + Qgen (6)
∂t B
∂ V (→ )→ → ( →)
ρW + V .∇ V = − ∇ P + μW ∇2 V + ρW → g (3) In these equations ρ is density and u, v, w are the velocity components
∂t
→
in x, y, and z directions, respectively. Also, V , cp and μ stand for velocity
vector, specific heat and fluid viscosity, respectively. Moreover, cpB and
▪ Energy equation for fluid region [46]: kB are the battery specific heat and conductivity, respectively, while Qgen
∂TW ( → ) is the heat generation inside the battery. The enthalpy-porosity method
ρW cpW + ∇. ρW cpW V TW = ∇.(kW ∇TW ) (4) is used for the solid–liquid phase change modeling. In this method, the
∂t
whole domain of the PCM material is considered to be porous region, so

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S. Mousavi et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 197 (2021) 117398

(1 − fl )2 ( )
Sx = − ( 3 )Amush ux − up (10)
fl + ε

(1 − fl )2 ( )
Sy = − ( 3 )Amush uy − up (11)
fl + ε

(1 − fl )2 ( )
Sy = − ( 3 )Amush uz − wp (12)
fl + ε

In which, fl is the liquid fraction and is calculated by the following

relation:
⎧
⎪
⎪ 0 if T < Ts
⎪
⎪
⎨
1 if Tl < T
fl = (13)
⎪
⎪ T − Ts
⎪
⎪ if Ts < T < Tl
⎩
Tl − Ts

In equations (10)–(12), up and wp are pull velocities which have been

ignored in the calculations in order to decrease the computational time.
Moreover, ε is a small constant O (0.001) which is added in order to
prevent the denominator from becoming zero. Amush is the constant
parameter inside the mushy zone and determines damping properties. In
higher values of Amush the velocity of the material tends faster to zero
during solidifaction. This parameter determines the quality of fluid flow
caused by natural convection in the mushy zone. Therefore, it is of
significant importance in the melting and solidification process and
varies based on different types of materials in various conditions [49].
Based on the measurments conducted in the work of Jones et al. [50]
and confirmed in the numerical study of Mousavi et al. [51], Amush with
value of 50,000 is acceptable for n-eicosane.

▪ Energy equation in PCM region [51]:

( ) ( 2 )
∂H ∂(uH) ∂(νH) ∂(wH) ∂ T ∂2 T ∂2 T
ρpcm + + + = kpcm + + (14)
∂t ∂x ∂y ∂z ∂x2 ∂y2 ∂z2
In which, k is the conductivity of the PCM and H is the total enthalpy
and is defined as:
H = h + ΔH (15)

where h is the sensible enthalpy and is expressed as:

∫T
h = href + cp dT (16)
Fig. 8. Variations in (a) maximum battery temperature and (b) PCM liquid Tref
faction for all cases in Qgen = 400 kW/m3.
ΔH is the latent enthalpy which varies between zero (in the solid
form) to hsl (in the liquid form) and is calculated as:
the porosity is 1 for liquid and zero for solid phase. Accordingly it is
equal to the liquid fraction of PCM in the mushy zone. Thus, the gov­ ΔH = fl hsl (17)
erning equations are expressed as below.
Also, href is the reference enthalpy at the reference temperature and
cp is the specific heat capacity at constant pressure.
▪ Conservation of momentum equation in PCM region [48]:
( ) ( 2 )
∂u ∂u ∂u ∂u ∂P ∂ u ∂2 u ∂2 u 4. Numerical simulation and validation
ρpcm +u +ν +w = − + μpcm + + + Sx (7)
∂t ∂x ∂y ∂z ∂x ∂x2 ∂y2 ∂z2
The numerical simulation of the present work is carried out in ANSYS
( ) ( )
∂ν ∂ν ∂ν ∂ν ∂P ∂2 ν ∂2 ν ∂2 ν Fluent 18.0, a commercial software. Besides, the computational domains
ρpcm +u +ν +w = − + μpcm + + + Sy (8) are meshed by structured grids, using ICEM-CFD. In numerical calcu­
∂t ∂x ∂y ∂z ∂y ∂x2 ∂y2 ∂z2
lations, second order upwind scheme is applied for desctetisizing the
( ) ( )
∂w ∂w ∂w ∂w ∂P ∂2 w ∂2 w ∂2 w variables. Also, SIMPLE alghorithm is used to couple the velocity and
ρpcm +u +ν +w = − + μpcm + + pressure equations. Besides, PRESTO is employed for the pressure cor­
∂t ∂x ∂y ∂z ∂z ∂x2 ∂y2 ∂z2 (9)
+ Sz + ρpcm gβ(T − Tm ) rections. During the simulations, under-relaxation rates of 0.5, 0.3, and
0.9 are applied for momentum, pressure, and liquid fraction, respec­
In the above equations, the terms Sx , Sy , Sz are momentum sink terms tively. To meet the convergence conditions, set point values for residuals
in different directions which are defined based on the porosity and are of momentum, continuity, and energy equations are assumed to be
expressed as follows [23]: 10− 5 ,10− 3 , and 10− 8 , respectively. In each time step, the convergence
criteria are satisfied after about 100–200 iterations. A workstation

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S. Mousavi et al.
Fig. 9. The temperature contours for (a) case 1 (b) case 2 (c) case 3 at t = 200 s.
computation server with Intel Xeon E5-2620 v4 (20 M Cache, 2.10 GHz)
CPU and 16 GB RAM is used to conduct the numerical simulations.
The accuracy of the numerical simulations are highly dependant to
the quality and number of meshes, as well as the selected time step
value. In this section, mesh and time-step independency are investigated
for case 1 model integrated with PCM, and based on the results, the
similar time-step and mesh size are applied to the other cases. The water
inlet is 0.01 m/s with 298.15 K temperature. The heat generation rate in
batteries is 400 kW/m3. PCM liquid fraction and maximum temperature
are the two main parameters which are studied in the simulations and
are investigated in time-step and mesh independence. Seven different
computational grids with 700,000 to 5.5 million elements are employed.
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Applied Thermal Engineering 197 (2021) 117398
The results of the maximum battery temperature and PCM liquid frac­
tion are presented in Fig. 5(a). It shows that the mesh with 3.6 million
elements is suitable for this geometry. The average mesh size is 0.179
mm × 0.081 mm × 0.383 mm in the computational domain. Using this
mesh, seven different time-step magnitutes between 0.025 and 0.4 (s)
were applied to the simulations. The results in Fig. 5(b), show that the
solution converges in 0.01 (s) time-step. For time-steps smaller than 0.1
(s) the variations in the maximum temperature and liquid mass fraction
are about 0.002 % and 0.09 %, respectively. Thus, for better efficiency
and optimum computational cost, the 0.1 (s) time-step is considered in
the current modelling. In this study, two different physical processes are
modelled together. Thus, the validation is conducted in two separate
S. Mousavi et al.
Fig. 10. PCM liquid fraction contours at t = 200 (s) (a) case 1 (b) case 2 (c) case 3.
steps. In the first step, the properties and governing equations in PCM
region are validated based on the two numerical and experimental
works. The results of validations are shown in Fig. 6. A major achieve­
ment in this validation is to determine the Amush = 50000 for n-eico­
sane, which is a vital parameter for numerical modelling of PCM melting
process. In the second step, the validation is conducted for the modelling
of the flow inside the mini-channel. As it is stated before, in order to
reduce the computational costs, the computational domain is limited to
half of the middle channel cross section. Since the maximum tempera­
ture is observed in the middle channel, the considered computational
domain is a suitable simplified model of the whole geometry. By
increasing the width of the cold plate and number of mini-channels, the
temperature profile becomes more uniform. To validate and confirm this
approach, results of simulation of the whole domains [30,46] are
compared with those of the current study (half of the middle channel)
and the results are shown in Fig. 7. It is shown that this approach is
sufficiently accurate for studying MCPs and HMCPs.
5. Results and discussions
The orientation of the batteries with respect to cold plates influences
the BTMS performance. In the current paper, batteries are aligned in
groups of five as battery modules and three different orientations of
battery modules are studied. These orientations named as cases 1 to 3
were shown in Fig. 2. Since the sizes of cold plates and the number of
channels are different in each case, the total water mass flow rate is
assumed similar for all cases. Therefore, the water velocities for cases 1
and 3 are 0.01 m/s and for case 2 is 0.0257 m/s. The thermal
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Applied Thermal Engineering 197 (2021) 117398
performance of all cases are compared at 400 kW/m3 heat generation
rate. The variations in battery maximum temperature and PCM liquid
fraction are shown in Fig. 8(a) and Fig. 8(b), respectively. According to
the results, the thermal performance of HMCP in case 3 is significantly
better than the other cases and the lowest efficiency was observed in
case 1. the length of the mini-channels is higher in case 1. Also, due to
low conduction coefficient in thickness direction of the batteries, heat is
slowly transferred to the cold plates. Although the distance between the
cold plates is relatively lower in case 1, it had the weakest thermal ef­
ficiency because of the two adverse reasons. The conduction coefficient
in normal direction to the cold plates are similar in cases 2 and 3.
Moreover, the PCM melting regimes are almost identical in both cases.
However, the lengths of the mini-channels are significantly smaller in
case 3. It is inferred that the length of the mini-channels plays a signif­
icant role in determining the efficiency of the BTMS in different cases. It
is shown that at t = 400 s the maximum battery temperature in case 3 is
30 K lower than that of case 1, which is significant. These results show
that the orientation of the battery modules is another key parameter on
impacting the BTMS performance. As a result, the case 3 is noted to be
the optimum configuration of the battery modules and cold plates.
The temperature contours are shown for cases 1 to 3 of HMCP in
Fig. 9. As it is shown, the maximum temperature is observed at the top
left corners of the domains far from HMCP. Another parameter influ­
encing the BTMS performance is the temperature difference along the
domain and the whole battery module. The temperature uniformity is
considered as a design element to optimize and reduce the maintenance
costs. Under uniform temperature, the batteries are kept in similar
health and power conditions. Keeping the batteries in the similar health
S. Mousavi et al.
Fig. 11. Variations in (a) maximum battery temperature and (b) PCM liquid
fraction for three thermal loads of 100, 200, and 400 kW/m3.
condition results in maintenance cost reduction, as they are replaced
and renewed in modules. In Fig. 9, The battery cells are distinguished by
the dotted lines.
The contours indicate that the temperature difference is also affected
by the battery module orientation. It is shown in case 1 that the battery
temperature far from the the cold plate is significantly higher than the
battery close to the cold plate, which results in lower life span for the
batteries far from the cold plate. In case 2, the battery cells are subjected
to relatively similar temperature profile, providing same condition for
the battery cells. In case 3, similar to case 1, one of the battery cells is
subjected to the most intense thermal condition; however, in case 3 the
temperature difference is considerably lower along the domain. Thus,
based on the lower maximum temperature and more uniform temper­
ature profile, case 3 of the BTMS configuration is known to have the best
performace among the other studied cases. The PCM liquid fraction
contours at t = 200 s are shown in Fig. 10.
As it was stated, the variations of liquid fraction are similar in cases 2
and 3, while the lowest liquid fraction is observed in case 1. This in­
dicates that the heat transfer rates to HMCPs are similar in cases 2 and 3
10
Applied Thermal Engineering 197 (2021) 117398
and is the lowest in case 1, which is due to the low conduction coefficient
in the battery thickness direction.
In the next step, the performance of BTMS with MCP and HMCP
under constant heat flux rates of 100, 200, and 400 kW/m3 is studied.
The variations in the maximum temperature with respect to time have
been demonstrated in Fig. 11(a). For Q = 100 kW/m3, the performances
of MCP and HMCP are almost similar. A deeper inspection about vari­
ations in PCM liquid fraction (as exhibited in Fig. 11(b)) shows that
temperature does not reach the PCM melting point at Q = 100 kW/m3
and PCM is only partially melted at the end of the process. Therefore, no
significant positive or negative effect is observed by the presence of
PCM. However, under the higer heat generation rates (200 and 400 kW/
m3), PCM is completely melted, resulting in 2–3 ◦ C reduction in the
maximum bettery temperature. The temporal averages of the maximum
battery temperature in HMCP cooling are 0.06, 1, and 10.35 K lower in
comparison to MCP cooling in Q = 100, 200, and 400 kW/m3, respec­
tively. Thus, the effect of PCM cooling is considerably more significant in
higher heat generation rates. It is worth mentioning that, this positive
effect decays gradually as the PCM completely melts down and both
MCP and HMCP show similar performances at the end of the process.
Based on the results, in order to maintain the cooling effect of PCM, it
may be more efficient to prevent PCMs from complete meltdown in
system designs.
The temperature contours for MCP and HMCP in 3 thermal loads for
t = 400 s are shown in Fig. 12. It is clear from this figure that the con­
tours for 100 kW/m3 heat generation rate are similar, while for the other
two thermal loads the effects of PCMs on decreasing the maximum
temperatures are more perceptible. Furthermore, as the PCM in Fig. 12
(e), is in the middle of the melting process, it has formed a constant
temperature region at the right side.
In real situations, heat generation inside the batteries is not constant
and consists of several thermal fluctuations during operation. In the next
step, the performance of BTMS under thermal pulses is investigated,
while the water inlet velocity is kept at 0.01 m/s. The magnitudes of
thermal pulses and variations in PCM liquid fractions with respect to
time are presented in Fig. 13(a). Also, the values of the maximum bat­
tery temperatures with MCP and HMCP are brought in Fig. 13(b). It is
observed that in pulse 3, the maximum temperature refering to MCP
deviates significantly from the one referring to HMCP. In other words, as
it can be inferred from the Fig. 13(a), in more intense pulses more
amount of PCM is melted in a particular time. Therefore, the effect of
PCM cooling is more distinguishable.
The coolant velocity is another key parameter on determining the
heat dissipation capacity of BTMS. The maximum battery temperature
and PCM liquid fractions are shown in Fig. 14(a) and Fig. 14(b) for
different velocities. It is clearly observed that the cooling capacity of the
BTMS is increased and melting fraction in PCM is decreased by
increasing the velocity. Therefore, the positive effect of PCMs decays in
higher velocities so that in 0.1 m/s velocity, MCP performs better than
HMCP due to faster cooldown.
In the preceding discussions, the performance of BTMS is studied
under constant and single pulsed heat generation rates. As the suc­
ceeding discussion, the performance of BTMS is investigated under se­
vere fluctuations. In this regard, a set of heat pulses along with three
inlet velocities are taken into account. In this case, PCM liquid fractions
and pulse magitudes as well as the maximum battery temperature are
provided in Fig. 15(a) and (b), respectively.
It is shown that in initial pulses with 0.01 m/s velocity, the HMCP
had a positive effect on decreasing maximum temperature. However,
after complete meltdown, the stored latent heat in PCM is released at
cool down condition. Besides, the heat is not dissipated enough through
the mini-channels to solidify the PCM. Thus, it is observed that in later
pulses, the MCP had better performance than the HMCP. In 0.05 m/s
velocity, due to high cooling capacity of mini-channels, PCM is not
melted completely during the process. Besides as a result of a delay in
decreasing the temperature, the effect of PCM is rather adverse. In 0.02
S. Mousavi et al.
Fig. 12. Temperature contour for MCP (top row) and HMCP (bottom row) at t = 400 s.
m/s velocity, a kind of equilibrium is observed between mini-channels
and PCM. According to the observations, PCM is significantly melted
at the pulse peaks, while it is solidified at resting condition. In early
pulses, although a better performance was observed in HMCP, later
because of the delay in cooldowns caused by PCM, MCPs showed a
relatively better performance. The temporal temperature averages of the
batteries during the discharge process are about 319, 315, and 312 K for
0.01, 0.02, and 0.05 m/s inlet velocities with less than 1 K difference
between MCP and HMCP. Overall, these results indicated that opposite
to the constant and single pulse situations because of the delays in
cooldowns, the presence of PCM in multiple heat pulses, did not show a
positive effect.
6. Conclusions
In this paper, battery thermal management systems (BTMSs) are
designed for cooling of battery cells in five cells modules, sandwiched
between cold plates. Two types of cold plates named as mini-channel
11
Applied Thermal Engineering 197 (2021) 117398
cold plate (MCP) and new designed hybrid mini-channel cold plate
(HMCP) were studied in this paper. Due to the non-isotropic behavior of
conduction coefficient in batteries, first, the battery module orientation
was also studied to achieve an optimal configuration in BTMS. Then the
efficiency and performance of BTMS with the two types of cold plates in
constant and pulsed thermal loads was demonstrated and compared. In
this regard, the following conclusions have been achieved based on the
obtained results:
• The battery module orientation between cold plates highly impacted
the performance of BTMS, while the temperature difference of up to
30 K in the maximum battery temperature was observed among
different cases.
• The temperature profile in the battery module is considerably
improved in the optimum orientation (case 3), keeping the battery
cells in equal thermal condition. Therefore, the battery cells were
maintained in similar level of health and efficiency, which results in
lower maintenance cost.
S. Mousavi et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 197 (2021) 117398

Fig. 13. Variations in (a) PCM liquid fractions and thermal pulses and (b) the
maximum battery temperature in MCP and HMCP by time.

Fig. 14. (a) The maximum battery temperatures and (b) PCM liquid fractions in
different inlet velocities.
• The temporal averages of the maximum battery temperature in
HMCP cooling are 0.06, 1, and 10.35 K lower in comparison to MCP
cooling in Q = 100, 200, and 400 kW/m3, respectively.
• Under multiple pulsed heat generation, the difference in temporal Project administration. Amirhosein Zadehkabir: Formal analysis,
average of the maximum temperature is less than 1 K between the Writing – original draft, Methodology, Software, Visualization.
hybrid and the active systems.
Declaration of Competing Interest
CRediT authorship contribution statement
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
Sepehr Mousavi: Methodology, Software, Validation, Visualization, interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
Writing – original draft. Majid Siavashi: Conceptualization, Investiga­ the work reported in this paper.
tion, Resources, Data curation, Writing – review & editing, Supervision,

12
S. Mousavi et al.
Fig. 15. Variations in (a) PCM liquid fractions and thermal pulses and (b) the
maximum battery temperature in MCP and HMCP by time.
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