Numerical investigation of thermal runaway propagation in a Li-ion battery module using the heat pipe cooling system

Abstract

It is a promising cooling strategy to use the heat pipe for the Li-ion battery module, which can maintain the temperature of the battery module properly and prevent high temperature, triggering the thermal runaway among adjacent batteries. In this study, the thermal runaway model is simulated through the internal short circuit, which couples with Volume of Fluid (VOF) model of the heat pipe cooling and solves in ANSYS FLUENT to realize the heat and mass transfer between batteries and heat pipes. A user-defined function (UDF) code including mass source and energy source is used to calculate the heat and mass transfer in VOF model during the thermal runaway process. Numerical simulations are adopted to probe thermal runaway processes of a single battery under different operation conditions and the thermal runaway propagation from a battery to adjacent batteries. It is concluded that the heat pipe cooling system cannot prevent the thermal runaway of a single battery, but it can prevent the thermal runaway propagation from a battery to adjacent batteries.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Major Program of Natural Science Foundation of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China (Grant no. 2017ZD02); Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, China (Grant no. BK20140301); National Natural Science Foundation of China, China (Grant nos. 11402156 and 61503269); and Research and Innovation Project of Postgraduate of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China (Grant no. B20171012803Z).