Thermal management especially cooling of electric vehicles (EVs) battery pack is of great significance for guaranteeing the performance of the cells as well as safety and high-efficiency working of the EVs. Liquid cooling is a powerful way to keep the battery temperature in a proper range. However, the efficiency of conventional liquid cooling is still limited due to the inherently low thermal conductivity of the coolant which is usually water or aqueous ethanol. In this paper, a new kind of coolant, liquid metal, is proposed to be used for the thermal management of the battery pack. Mathematical analysis and numerical simulations are conducted to evaluate the cooling capability, pump power consumption and module temperature uniformity of the liquid metal cooling system, in comparison with that of water cooling. The results show that under the same flow conditions, a lower and more uniform module temperature can be obtained and less pump power consumption are needed in the liquid metal cooling system. In addition, liquid metal has an excellent cooling capability coping with stressful conditions, such as high power draw, defects in cells, and high ambient temperature. This makes it a promising coolant for the thermal management of high driving force EVs and quick charge batteries. 

Energy Conversion and Management

Volume 117, 1 June 2016, Pages 577–585