Heat Transfer Improvement of Prismatic Lithium-Ion Batteries via a Mini-Channel Liquid-Cooling Plate With Vortex Generators

Temperature is a critical factor affecting the performance and safety of battery packs of electric vehicles (EVs). The design of liquid cooling plates based on mini-channels has always been the research hotspots of battery thermal management systems (BTMS). This paper investigates the effect of adding vortex generators (VGs) to the liquid cooling channel on the heat dissipation capacity and temperature uniformity of the battery. The shape of the vortex generators (triangle, trapezoid, and semicircle), placement position (middle, inlet, and outlet of the channel), different flowrates, and different numbers of channels on the heat dissipation of the battery are systematically analyzed. The research results indicate that (1) compared to the triangular and trapezoidal vortex generators, the semicircular vortex generators have a lower cost in terms of pressure drop while maintaining the same heat dissipation efficiency. The pressure drop of the semicircular vortex generators is 15.89% less than that of the trapezoidal vortex generators and 20.49% less than that of the triangular vortex generators. (2) The effect of adding vortex generators is more obvious when the flowrate is small in the cooling channels. When the flow velocity is 0.025 m/s, the heat dissipation performance can be increased by 7.4%. (3) When the cross-sectional area of the inlet is fixed, the heat dissipation effect of more channels is better. The average temperature of three and seven cooling channels decreases from 311.23 K to 310.07 K, with a decrease of 8.87%. (4) The temperature difference can be effectively reduced when the vortex generators are concentrated near the outlet of the flow outlet. Its temperature difference is 1.8 K lower than that when the vortex generators are placed near the inlet, with a decrease of 10.5%.