Investigation of the Effects of Design and Operating Parameters on the Thermal Management System Performance of a Lithium-Ion Battery Pack for Sustainable Energy Storage

The aim of this study is to advance sustainable transportation, energy efficiency, environmental benefits, and the long-term performance of electric vehicles and to support the transition to sustainable transport while mitigating environmental impacts. Lithium-ion battery packs are widely used in electric vehicles and as energy storage systems because of their long lifespan and high energy density. This study experimentally and numerically investigated the effect of a hybrid sensible-cooling and phase-change material (PCM) approach to cooling a lithium-ion battery pack and its impact on battery thermal management system (BTMS) performance. The experimental approach involved designing, constructing, and operating the BTMS under both natural- and forced-air-convection cooling with and without PCM. A theoretical model was developed to investigate design and operating parameters, and its results were validated against experimental data. The main experimental findings show that under hybrid cooling, which combines either natural convection or forced-air cooling with PCM around the battery cells, the battery cell temperatures were 47.2 °C and 42.7 °C at the end of discharge, which are considered safe. The model results were validated against the corresponding measured values, and they agreed with them. The results indicate that the cells remain at safe temperatures across different PCM masses and that BTMS shows the best thermal performance with a PCM thickness of dPCM = 10 mm with a balanced configuration under the evaluated constraints. Also, the air–PCM hybrid systems offer a lighter, more cost-effective alternative with lower parasitic power that still meets standard safety and temperature limits (<60 °C) and requires simpler maintenance.