Cooling performance analysis and sensitivity analysis of thermoelectric cooling for an 18650 battery pack thermal management

Thermoelectric cooling systems are suitable for small-scale thermal management in narrow spaces, particularly effective for electronic devices. Previous studies mainly focus on hybrid battery thermal systems with an emphasis on structure optimizations. Few of them report how the cold-end temperature of the thermoelectric cooler governs the thermal performance of battery packs. In this work, a simplified thermal model for a thermoelectric cooling-based battery thermal management system is established. By changing initial temperatures, cold plate temperatures, and discharge rates, a simulation study on discussing their influences on the thermal distribution of a battery pack is conducted. Higher battery initial temperature brings higher battery surface temperature. A 2.2 °C temperature difference is obtained along the longitudinal cross-section of the battery. Reducing the surface temperature of the cold plate can confine the maximum temperature but deteriorate the temperature uniformity. At 5 °C cold plate temperature, the maximum surface temperature of the battery pack is as low as 18.3 °C. Battery non-uniformity and maximum surface temperature increase with the discharge rate. Sensitivity analysis is conducted to shown that it is possible to increase the heat dissipation of thermoelectric cooling-based battery thermal management system by regulating cold plate temperatures. • A simplified thermoelectric cooling-based battery thermal management model is set up. • Thermal distribution of a battery pack is numerically analyzed under three factors. • Cold plate temperature below 5 °C is unacceptable, with T max below 20 °C. • At the end of discharge, T max is more sensitive to the cold plate temperature.