LAUSR

This work is about a thermal management system of prismatic lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles (EV) and hybrid vehicles. Solid state thermoelectric modules (TEMs) were installed on a heat spreader specially designed to mechanically support the prismatic li-ion battery cells. TEMs offer many advantages to vehicular application, being environmentally friendly, quiet, having a low weight, and well suited for heating or cooling the battery cells. The proposed system was modeled and simulated. After its construction, it was tested under different values of discharge current and ambient temperature values corresponding to various driving conditions of the vehicle. In addition, its performance was compared with a compatible forced air cooling system. Experimental results show the feasibility of the proposed thermal management system as it consumes very little parasitic power when ambient temperature falls within the range of 0–40 °C]. However, its design added 120% to the volume of the battery pack and 80% to its weight. This additional weight consumes 2 Wh/Km from the EV batteries.