Effect of thermo-physical properties of cooling mass on hybrid cooling for lithium-ion battery pack using design of experiments

The environmental and sustainability issues related to fossil fuel have made electric vehicles an alternative solution with lithium ion (Li-Ion) as the energy source. The sensitive nature of Li-Ion batteries has led to an active research on their thermal management for the past decade. The rise in temperature in Li-Ion batteries involves complex dynamics and there are several approaches to control it. Keeping it as the focus of research, this paper illustrates the application of design of experiments (DOE) to optimize the control variables involved in thermal management. Control variables used for optimization are mass of phase change material (PCM), thermal conductivity of paraffin copper composite (PCC) and water flow rate (WFL). The influence of these variables on the temperature rise of Li-Ion batteries has been studied. The research methodology involved full factorial DOE with two replications to analyze the influence of temperature control parameters of Li-Ion batteries. Multivariate analysis involved analysis of variance (ANOVA) that was used to test the hypotheses, which included the first and second-order interaction effect of control variables. The hypothesis testing has revealed that all the variables of study had a significant influence on the temperature rise of the Li-Ion batteries. The outcome of this research will be useful for Li-Ion battery manufacturers, as it provides suggestions to design appropriate cooling systems for the battery pack