Title: Brief overview of battery thermal management systems for vehicle hybridisation

Authors: Xubin Song

Addresses: Weichai New Energy Technology Co., China

Abstract: The requirements for the power battery on hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) involve structural layout, operational environments, energy management, and safety design. The battery thermal management (BTM) system is the key for optimising the battery performance, improving the battery longevity, enhancing the system safety, and preventing from thermal runaway. This paper reviews the technology progress of BTM from design analysis to application majorly based on the published studies on the Toyota Prius battery system and other closely related research progresses. This overview provides an insight of Prius BTMs which plays a critical role in delivering desired performance and prolonging calendar life of battery packs in HEVs. Even though the focus is on Toyota NiMH and Li-ion (LIB) battery, both knowledge and techniques can be borrowed to look into any other battery configurations with applicable cooling methods. Finally, latest BTM progresses are discussed in general that can further optimise thermal balance and temperature controls to meet safety and dynamic requirements on batteries for EV/HEV.

Keywords: battery thermal management; BTM; NiMH battery; Li-ion battery; LIB; hybrid electric vehicle; HEV; thermal runaway; Prius.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPT.2021.120305

International Journal of Powertrains, 2021 Vol.10 No.3, pp.235 - 246

Received: 21 Feb 2020
Accepted: 29 Aug 2020
Published online: 14 Jan 2022 *

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