Experiment Characterization and Simulation Analysis of a Lithium-Ion Battery in Different Ambient Conditions

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">A great number of performances of an electric vehicle such as driving range, powering performance, and the like are affected by its configured batteries. Having a good grasp of the electrical and thermal behavior of the battery before the detailed design stage is indispensable.</div><div class="htmlview paragraph">This paper introduces an experiment characterization method of a lithium-ion battery with a coolant system from cell level to pack level in different ambient conditions. Corresponding cell and pack simulation models established in AMESim that aimed to capture the electrical and thermal features of the battery were also illustrated, respectively.</div><div class="htmlview paragraph">First, the capacity test and hybrid pulse power characterization (HPPC) test were conducted in a thermotank to acquire basic data about the battery cell. Next, based on acquired data, first-order equivalent circuit model (1C-ECM) was built for the battery cell and further combined with environmental boundary conditions to check the simulation accuracy. Then, hybrid battery pack tests that encompass different combinations of ambient temperature, coolant flow rate, coolant temperature, and charge/discharge rates were conducted in the climate chamber. Finally, a battery pack model along with a cooling system was built to examine the correlation between hybrid test data and simulation results.</div><div class="htmlview paragraph">In capacity and HPPC tests, the voltage drop and temperature change of the simulated cell model are in good consistency with experiment data. When it comes to hybrid battery pack tests, though the boundary conditions are more complex, simulation accuracy presented by the model still shows good acceptance. Hence, the proposed experiment characterization and corresponding modeling methods could well describe the electrical and thermal behavior of real batteries, and it could be expected to be helpful in further studying the energy consumption of fully electric vehicles associated with the battery.</div></div>