Experimental Study on Indirect Liquid Cooling Performance of Metal 3D-Printed Cold Plates for Battery Thermal Management

Abstract

Two new cold plates manufactured via metal 3D printing were experimentally investigated for thermal performance analysis in indirect liquid cooling operations; then they were compared to the traditional cold plates. Experiments were performed with different coolant inlet temperatures (15.7 °C and 24.5 °C) and ambient air velocities (0.5 m/s and 3 m/s) at tropical conditions; hereby, the impact of high dew point temperatures at tropics was also investigated. Body-centered cubic (BCC) and pillar elements were applied in the cooling cavity of the cold plates. The results showed that the target surface temperature in both BCC- and pillar-filled plate designs was maintained below the limits at the lower inlet temperature. However, at the higher inlet temperature, the temperature was only maintained below the limit when the ambient air velocity was 3 m/s. The convective heat transfer coefficient at the inlet temperature of 15.7 °C was found 1.5 and 2.5 times higher than the convective heat transfer coefficient value at the inlet temperature of 24.5 °C for the pillar- and BCC-filled plates, respectively. The performance evaluation criterion values were found in the range of 1.2 − 2.4, which depended on the operating conditions and were already higher than the referenced studies in the literature.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study is funded by the Ministry of Education Tier 1 RG154/19 (Singapore) and the Unfettered Research Grant of the Momental Foundation (USA). B.B. Kanbur was the Mistletoe Research Fellow (2020–2021) and sincerely thanks the Momental Foundation for this opportunity during the tough research period in pandemics. We greatly appreciate Mr. Lim Si Xian for his help to measure the surface roughness of the cold plate. The authors would also like to thank the support of the Energy Systems Lab in the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), the Thermal Energy Section in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Technical University of Denmark (Denmark), and the Singapore Centre for 3D Printing (SC3DP) at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore).

Notes on contributors

Baris Burak Kanbur

Baris Burak Kanbur is a postdoctoral researcher at the Technical University of Denmark. His main research interest is thermal engineering applications at lab-, component-, or system-level with the aspects of heat transfer and thermodynamics by using experimental and computational methods. He worked as a research fellow at Nanyang Technological University until 2022 after receiving his Ph.D. degree from the same university in mid-2019.

Yi Zhou

Yi Zhou is a research associate in Singapore Center for 3D Printing at Nanyang Technological University. He received his B.Eng. from University of Electronic Science and Technology of China before receiving M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from Nanyang Technological University. His research interests include design of lightweight heat exchangers and metal additive manufacturing of complex shaped industrial structures.

Mun Hoe Seat

Mun Hoe Seat is a naval warfare system engineer at the Republic of Singapore Navy. He received his mechanical engineering degree from Nanyang Technological University in 2022. His research interest is thermal management of power sources with lab- and component-scale experiments.

Wiebke Brix Markussen

Wiebke Brix Markussen is a senior consultant in the Center of Refrigeration and Heat pump Technology at the Danish Technological Institute. Her main research focus is cooling systems, refrigeration applications, and heat pumps with a strong expertise is thermodynamics and heat transfer. Previously, she was an Associate Professor at the Technical University of Denmark. She received her Ph.D. degree from the same university in 2010.

Martin Ryhl Kærn

Martin Ryhl Kærn is a specialist engineer in Thermodynamics and Energy Technology at IPU. His research focus is fundamental and applied heat transfer focusing on heat exchangers, cooling systems, and refrigeration processes. He was previously a Senior Researcher at the Technical University of Denmark. He received his Ph.D. degree from the same university in 2011.

Fei Duan

Fei Duan is currently an Associate Professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He joined the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Nanyang Technological University in 2008. Before that, he was a postdoctoral fellow and Ph.D. student in University of Toronto, Canada. His research covers fundamental and applied studies on thermofluid and energy systems.