PCM-Based Thermal Management of a Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging System

Irreversible magnetic loss exists in the operation of the wireless electric vehicle (EV) charging system, which will cause serious heating problems. Phase change materials (PCMs) is widely used and have a good performance in the field of thermal management. Aiming at the cooling of high-power wireless EV charging system, a set of PCM-based thermal management system is designed for the limited space using the special aluminum alloys with high permeability and high thermal conductivity. The heat flow density at the transmitter of wireless EV charging system is in the range of 0.5–0.75 W/cm2. The experiments study the temperature change at the transmitter under different heat emission conditions. The cooling efficiency and the heat transfer coefficient at the heat transfer surface are compared between the horizontal air flow through the cooling channel with and without PCM. The results show that the designed PCM-based thermal management system can meet the wireless EV charging system’s demand of cooling and the heat transfer coefficient varies with air velocities. Using PCM can ensure that the stable temperature of the heating plate does not exceed 80 °C under the long operation scheme with the ambient temperature of 20 °C. These can provide support for the PCM-based thermal management of wireless EV charging system.