The effect of increasing the thermal conductivity of a cylindrical cell housing on thermal performance

The development and utilization of larger format cylindrical cells has become more prevalent in industry with a key consideration being thermal management. This paper aims to identify the effect of increasing the thermal conductivity of the cell housing on the heat rejection and thermal performance of a 4680 cell under both side and base cooling schemes with significant reduction in both maximum temperature and thermal gradients seen. It is also shown that by using the modified housing with thermal conductivity k=250 W/mK, cold plate size may be reduced by over 50% whilst maintaining the thermal performance of the standard cell.