It's getting hot in here : temperature gradients in lithium-ion battery packs

A 5 channel, 40A battery cycler was constructed for the purpose of carrying out thermal studies on Lithium-ion battery packs. Boston Power Swing Key 442 battery blocks were tested to determine the magnitude of the temperature gradient over the pack. The battery blocks were stacked vertically, similar to how they might be situated on an electric vehicle. They were cycled, discharged then charged, at a current of 40A in stacks of one, two, three and four, with and without unidirectional air-cooling from the top of the pack. The resulting temperature data was analyzed to see if a temperature gradient over the pack was present. A correlation was found between placement in the pack and cell temperature; the lower down in the pack a cell was, and thus the further from the air flow, the warmer the pack became during operation. For the four battery test, a maximum temperature difference of 2.9°C was observed between the hottest and coldest cells.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2015

Author dc:creator

• Niewood, Benjamin

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Sanjay E. Sarma.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/98774

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/98774