| Electric vehicles are increasingly attractive for their potential to reduce dependence on imported oil, reduce emission and greenhouse gases. The locomotive and automobile industries account for a significant percentage of the total fuel consumption in the US. The necessity for reducing fuel consumption and emissions led to the development of the hybrid electric, plug-in electric and all-electric vehicles which uses electric motors and regenerative braking system. Most market projections agree that a rapidly increasing share of new vehicle sales will consist of hybrid-electric, plug-in hybrid, and all-electric models. For automakers, the key to this dramatic shift will be to the development and use of higher energy and power density batteries such as lithium-ion batteries.;Previous studies at NIU indicate that at higher discharge and charge rates the battery performance decreases due to increased polarization losses, which results in increased internal heat generation and temperature rise of the lithium-ion battery. An effective thermal management and battery cooling scheme are required to achieve optimum battery performance for high discharge and charge rates associated with the electric vehicles. The objective of this study is to evaluate performance of lithium-ion battery experimentally and using computer simulation, considering different discharge and charge rates of an electric vehicle. A computer simulation model based on electrochemical kinetics, heat generation, and combined transport of charges, species and heat will be used to investigate the thermal behavior and thermal management requirements of the battery under a variety of load conditions. A cooling scheme for the battery energy storage system will be developed using Battery Design Studio model for battery chemistry and electrochemical reactions, and using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code Star CCM+. |
