Research Article Numerical Analysis and Design of Thermal Management System for Lithium Ion Battery Pack Using Thermoelectric Coolers

Copyright © 2014 Yong Liu et al.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. A new design of thermal management system for lithium ion battery pack using thermoelectric coolers (TECs) is proposed. Firstly, the 3D thermal model of a high power lithium ion battery and the TEC is elaborated.Then the model is calibrated with experiment results. Finally, the calibrated model is applied to investigate the performance of a thermal management system for a lithium ion battery pack.The results show that battery thermalmanagement system (BTMS)with TEC can cool the battery in very high ambient temperature. It can also keep a more uniform temperature distribution in the battery pack than common BTMS, which will extend the life of the battery pack and may save the expensive battery equalization system. 1