Battery Module Tail-End Cooling Plate with Variable Thermal Resistance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing battery modules face challenges in maintaining temperature uniformity among stacked batteries, especially when using a cooling plate at the tail end, leading to inefficient heat transfer and performance issues due to varying thermal resistance.
Innovation Solution
A battery module design featuring a cooling plate at the tail end with heat-conducting fins and a heat transfer device that gradually increases thermal contact area and reduces thermal resistance along the stacking direction, ensuring consistent temperature across batteries through indirect thermal insulation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If a cooling plate is provided at a tail end in a battery stacking direction, then the cooling structure is simplified, but the temperature uniformity of the batteries becomes worse
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by varying the thermal resistance characteristics of different parts of the heat transfer device. Specifically, the thermal resistance between each battery and the heat transfer device is reduced along with an increase of distance from the cooling plate, creating non-uniform thermal properties in different locations to compensate for the inherent temperature gradients in the battery stack.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes thermal resistance parameters of the heat transfer device to optimize heat distribution. By adjusting the thermal resistance values at different positions (reducing thermal resistance for batteries farther from the cooling plate), the system achieves more uniform temperature distribution across all batteries while maintaining a simple single-plate cooling structure.
2Power
If thermal contact area between cooling plate and batteries is increased, then heat transfer efficiency is improved, but thermal resistance variation among batteries is enlarged
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements local quality by making the heat transfer device have position-dependent thermal resistance characteristics. The thermal contact area and thermal resistance are optimized locally for each battery based on its distance from the cooling plate, ensuring that batteries farther away have lower thermal resistance to compensate for the longer heat transfer path.
Solution Approach 2:
The heat transfer device serves as an intermediary between the cooling plate and the batteries. It actively manages and equalizes thermal resistance variations by having different thermal contact characteristics with different batteries, thereby mediating the heat transfer process to achieve uniform temperature distribution across all batteries.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This design simplifies the module structure, reduces thermal resistance, and enhances temperature equalization among batteries, improving overall performance and safety by maintaining consistent temperatures across the battery stack.
Implementation Method 1
heat of the batteries is transferred to the cooling plate through the heat transfer device
Implementation Method 2
the cooling plate and the battery stacked body are provided in a thermal-insulating manner
Data Source
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AI summary
The disclosure provides a battery module. The battery module includes a battery stacked body, which includes stacked batteries; cooling plates that are installed at the tail ends in a battery stacking direction of the battery stacked body, and the cooling plates and the battery stacked body are installed in a thermal insulation mode; and heat transfer device that are in thermal contact with the cooling plates, and heat of the batteries is transferred to the cooling plates through the heat transfer device; wherein in a normal charging-discharging state, the battery with the highest temperature in the battery stacked body is a battery A; and between a single cooling plate and the battery A, a thermal resistance between each battery and the heat transfer device is reduced along with the increase of a distance between the each battery and the cooling plate in the battery stacking direction. The embodiments of the present disclosure is capable of solving a problem that the temperature coherence of each battery in a cooling process is bad, providing the battery module, simplifying the structure of the battery module and realizing the temperature uniformity of each battery.