Holistic System Design and Efficient Optimization of a Liquid Cooled Battery Module Through 1D- and 3D-Simulations

This publication extends on a holistic system design approach by implementing an efficient simulation methodology to design a robust cooling system for a liquid cooled battery module. After gaining insight into the functionality of the system and its components, the most promising parts for redesign were selected using a method called Extended Target Weighing Approach (ETWA). Because of this redesign, the cell mount was reduced in height and the cooling system topology parallelized to lower pressure losses. The design of the new cooling system geometry is explored. The parameter optimization is carried out with a simplified 1D fluid dynamics model. To verify and validate the 1D-simulation, a more detailed 3D-simulation is used at bespoke crucial times during development. The main boundary conditions were keeping the pressure losses at or below its reference level from the module’s predecessor, while designing a robust system in terms of flow rate distribution in the parallel channels. The result was a system behaving almost indifferent to changes in temperature or total flow rate with the channels individually changing less than 5% of total flow rate and all channels staying in the range between 20% to 32% of total flow rate at all times. The overall system pressure drop could be brought down to half of its reference value. The two simulations were achieving similar results, eventually deviating less than 5% relative to each other in simulated flow rates and pressure losses.