Experimental investigation on the feasibility of heat pipe cooling for HEV/EV lithium-ion battery

In this paper, the use of flat heat pipe as an effective and low-energy device to mitigate the temperature of a battery module designed for a HEV application was investigated. For this purpose, nominal heat flux generated by a battery module was reproduced and applied to a flat heat pipe cooling system. The thermal performance of the flat heat pipe cooling system was compared with that of a conventional heat sink under various cooling conditions and under several inclined positions. The results show that adding heat pipe reduced the thermal resistance of a common heat sink of 30% under natural convection and 20% under low air velocity cooling. Consequently, the cell temperature was kept below 50 °C, which cannot be achieved using heat sink. According to the space allocated for the battery pack in the vehicle, flat heat pipe can be used in vertical or horizontal position. Furthermore, flat heat pipe works efficiently under different grade road conditions. The transient behaviour of the flat heat pipe was also studied under high frequency and large amplitude variable input power. The flat heat pipe was found to handle more efficiently instant increases of the heat flux than the conventional heat sink. -- Highlights: • Constant heat flux was applied to a flat heat pipe cooling system. • Its thermal performance was compared with that of a heat sink under several cooling conditions. • The influence of the inclination was evaluated. • The heat pipe transient behaviour was also studied under variable input power. • Heat pipe was found to be an effective and low-energy solution for HEV/EV battery cooling