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Summary: The performance of lithium‐ion (Li‐ion) batteries in a battery module is significantly affected by the operating temperature. Temperatures above 40°C can speed up the battery aging and shorten the lifespan and may even lead to thermal runaway. Besides, the maximum temperature deviation between the cells inside the battery module is normally expected to be less than 5°C. Among various cooling strategies used in thermal management of Li‐ion batteries, application of micro heat pipe arrays (MHPAs) has received little attention. Hence, in the present study, a feasibility study has been conducted to assess the thermal performance of such a thermal link in controlling both the maximum temperature and temperature dispersion within the desired range. The MHPA‐assisted cooling system was tested under various rates of heat generations (10‐25 W total) and degrees of inclination (−90° to +90°). Experimental results have revealed a significant influence of the MHPA angle of inclination on the temperature of the evaporating section of the heat pipe. The best thermal performance was found to be at an angle of inclination of −15° where the condenser is located above the evaporating section. Performance degradation was observed for all the MHPA orientations where the condenser is located below the evaporating section. The thermal performance of the MHPA‐assisted cooling system is also influenced by the rate of generated heat. The maximum effective thermal conductivity for the MHPA was measured to be about 75 000 W/m2 °C. A dimensional figure of merit is defined for the MHPA‐assisted cooling system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The parallel air‐cooled system is commonly applied in electric vehicles to cool the battery pack, in which flow pattern significantly influences the system cooling performance. In this paper, the curved divergence and convergence plenums are used to design the flow pattern in the parallel air‐cooled system for battery thermal management. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method is used for performance evaluation of the cooling system. The height distribution of control points is used to describe the plenum shape. During the optimization process, flow resistance network model is employed to obtain the velocity distribution of the system. An effective strategy is developed to adjust the height distribution of the control points for flow pattern design. Experiments are conducted to verify the CFD method and calculation model. Then typical cases are adopted to evaluate the proposed strategy for flow pattern design. The numerical results show that the strategy can effectively control the system flow pattern by designing the plenum shape. The cell temperature difference of the optimized system achieves an 86% reduction with the pressure drop only increased by 26%. Furthermore, compared with the optimized system with linear plenums in the reference, the optimized system with curved plenums achieves 48% reduction for the cell temperature difference without the pressure drop increased. Finally, experiments are conducted for the optimized system to verify the effectiveness of the developed strategy. The present study can provide a guide for the design of efficient parallel air‐cooled BTMS. Highlights: Shape optimization of the curved plenums for air‐cooled BTMSs is conducted.Effective strategy is developed to optimize the shape of curved plenums.ΔTmax of the optimized BTMS is reduced by 86% with ΔP only increased by 26%.Optimized BTMS with curved plenums performs better than that with linear plenums.Experiments are done to verify the calculation models and optimization strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]