Multiscale Thermal Management of Electric Vehicles, Battery and Charging Systems: Experimental Validation and Computational Modeling Spearheading Innovation in Electric Vehicles and Battery Systems
ATOMS Laboratory implements a novel experimental-computational multiscale approach for thermal-electrical-chemical modeling and battery development activities integrating experiments and computational simulations across multiple physical domains and length scales from the electrode level to the vehicle level
Motivation
- Lithium-ion battery (LIB) packs are intricate, involving various components and processes
- Exhibit phenomena across different scales, from atomic interactions to macroscopic behavior
- Interconnected physical processes such as electrochemistry and thermal phenomena play crucial roles
- Thermal management, a key to improve performance, safety and longevity, mitigating degradation and ensuring safe operation
Research Activities
- Hierarchical multiscale modeling for battery thermal management optimization
- Characterizing innovative electrochemical-thermal Li-ion systems
- Estimating thermophysical properties and heat generation rates
- Predicting thermal performance across LIB systems
- Isolating heat generation rates distribution through Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS)
Motivation
- Need for intelligent solutions for vehicle cooling and heating challenges despite battery thermal management system (BTMS) advances
- Long computational times and limited parameter access issues in traditional BTMS optimization methods
- ATOMS lab pioneers advanced thermal simulation frameworks for BTMS optimization
- Innovative approach integrating deep convolutional neural network for optimal design predictions
Research Activities
- Hierarchical thermal modeling considering spatio-temporal battery heat generation effects
- Integrating novel deep convolutional encoder-decoder hierarchical (DeepEDH) neural network for surrogate-model based design optimization
- Investigating thermally optimal liquid-cooled cold plates for battery thermal management systems
- Predicting effectively cold plates’ temperature, pressure, and velocity fields through DeepEDH neural network surrogate model
Motivation
- Safety concerns with Thermal Runaway (TR) in LIBs due to frequent TR incidents
- Lack of practical computational tools assisting design of safe battery energy storage systems (BESS)
- Development of safer BESS requiring better understanding of TR trigger and propagation mechanisms
- System-level understating of TR dynamics and implementing safer designs adhering to industry standards
Research Activities
- Predicting TR propagation speed in battery module with large series of lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt oxide (NMC) pouch cells
- Representing commercially available modular BESS used in battery-assisted EV fast charging and stand-alone grid storage applications.
- Investigating effects of the cell TR trigger temperatures
- Investigating temporal and spatial TR propagation behavior across multiple cells
- Leveraging computational transient heat transfer model as well as single-cell and cell-to-cell TR experiments
Motivation
- Widespread adoption of LIBs require overcoming critical technological constraints impacting battery aging and safety
- Battery aging results in irreversible capacity & performance losses
- Increase EV battery performance reliability to mitigate battery aging
Research Activities
- Developing physics-based calendar and cycle aging LIB models to simultaneously predict state of health, loss of lithium inventory and loss of active material for negative/positive electrodes
- Predicting battery health while simultaneously predicting aging root causes
- Providing solution-based approach for modelling to capture thermo-electric gradients within pouch cells and effects on accelerating battery aging
- Leveraging industry partnerships for manufacturing novel pouch cells and ATOMS thermal management systems (TMS) laboratory for model validation
Motivation
- Adopting faster charging rates crucial to reduce range anxiety and making EVs more competitive with gasoline vehicles
- New engineering challenges for the electro-thermal co-design for reliably operate at unprecedented power levels
- Significant thermal constraints on power electronics and magnetic components adopting extreme fast charging rates above 350 kW
Research Activities
- Designing and prototyping innovative cooling and packaging architectures for MOSFET, IGBT and power magnetic components for on-board (AC – Level 2) and off-board (DC – Level 3) charging systems
- Addressing tightly coupled electro-thermal constraints of novel charging systems within a virtual design environment that concurrently integrates inputs from multidisciplinary fields
- Coupling CAD generation, electrical architecture design, multiscale thermal analysis, and multi-objective optimization from the device level to system level