Battery thermal management technology
Thermal management, in short, refers to the process of adjusting and controlling the temperature and temperature difference of the target object using heating or cooling methods for components such as batteries. The basic principles involved are heat conduction, convective heat transfer, or thermal radiation, all of which involve temperature differences. Therefore, the process of thermal management requires energy consumption to create a temperature difference between the target object and the external environment.
Its application scenarios are very diverse, and it has been widely used in industries such as industry, communication, consumer electronics, servers, energy storage, new energy vehicles, and other scenarios. It has a very positive effect on the normal and stable operation of related equipment or electronic components. With the rapid development of related industries, the thermal management industry will also receive more and more attention.
The importance of thermal management:
Thermal management can prevent overheating and system failures. With the rapid development of thermal management related application scenarios, the functions of related equipment increase, and the work of components accumulates a large amount of heat. Excessive heat accumulation can lead to damage to electronic components, decreased equipment performance, and even the collapse of the entire system. Through reasonable thermal management measures, heat can be effectively dissipated, ensuring that the system operates within the appropriate temperature range and improving system reliability.
Thermal management can improve energy utilization efficiency. In new energy vehicles, high or low working environments can affect battery performance, thereby affecting the range of new energy vehicles. By implementing reasonable and effective thermal management strategies, the working temperature can be maintained at a reasonable temperature, reducing energy consumption and operating costs.
Types of thermal management technologies:
Taking the field of electric vehicles as an example, current thermal management solutions can be roughly divided into four types: air cooling, liquid cooling, direct cooling, and phase change materials.
Air cooling is a common and simple way of heat dissipation, utilizing natural airflow or fans to blow away the heat absorbed by the radiator. It has the advantages of low cost, simple installation, reliability, and easy maintenance, but is greatly affected by the environment, and early electric vehicle applications were more common.
Liquid cooling can be divided into cold plate liquid cooling and immersion liquid cooling. Cold plate liquid cooling is an indirect heat dissipation method that uses the coolant in the cold plate to exchange heat with the battery by contacting the cooling plate and removing heat through the cooling channel. Immersion liquid cooling is a heat dissipation method of immersing battery modules in insulated cooling liquid for heat exchange. Liquid cooling has the advantages of high heat transfer efficiency and uniform heat, but its cost is relatively high.
Refrigerant direct cooling is the use of refrigerant from the entire vehicle air conditioning system to directly flow the refrigerant into the internal evaporator of the battery. The refrigerant evaporates in the evaporator and efficiently takes away the heat from the battery system. This design is simple and easy to disassemble, with low maintenance costs in the later stage. However, direct heating is not possible and additional heating systems need to be added.
Phase change materials can be divided into three types: inorganic phase change materials, organic phase change materials, and composite phase change materials. Its endothermic and exothermic process ensures a stable system temperature and can achieve an approximate constant temperature effect, which has been applied in many fields. It has simple structure, small mass, and huge latent heat characteristics, but high replacement cost and poor stability.
With the development of related industries, the importance of energy consumption and safety by relevant departments, as well as the demand of customers for the stability of related products, has been increasingly valued by manufacturers. Its characteristics of maintaining system stability, enhancing performance, enhancing security, and reducing costs are also favored by relevant industry insiders. Therefore, with the continuous development of related material technology, more and more solutions will be applied, and the application scenarios of thermal management will be further expanded.
