Electric Vehicle

Battery research has gained enormous attention in the past few decades. It is estimated that there would be a 40% increase in demand for electricity between 2010 and 2040.  

However, various aspects of battery research are being explored to achieve higher efficiency, performance, and life. Thermal management of batteries is one of the key aspects which needs to be taken care of. Appropriate cooling mechanisms need to be incorporated to keep the performance of the batteries intact. 

Direct fluid cooling

Air cooling 

Air cooling is considered as an inexpensive way of cooling the battery pack. This is usually considered effective for low-capacity batteries and low-temperature regimes (20-40 degrees). We are handling air-sealed battery packs and convective air flows from the battery packs. Both cases offer different physics. On one hand, former cases predominantly use conduction and radiation as the mode of heat transfer, whereas in the latter case convection and conduction are the dominant modes of heat transfer.

Immersion Cooling

Due to the failing scenarios of EV cooling, manufacturing industries are moving towards liquid immersion cooling due to their better convective heat transfer coefficient and specific heat capacity. Single phase and two-phase immersion cooling are effective cooling mechanisms widely explored in recent times. We have worked on a single cell cooling by coolant and phase change once the boiling temperature is reached. Phase change takes up an additional heat in form of latent heat and offers a better heat transfer. 

Phase change material 

Phase change material cooling is applicable to not only batteries but also for biochemical applications and others. The physics behind the phase change material cooling offers a multi-faceted challenge computationally in form of melting of a solid material and subsequent heat transfer. Over time, Paanduv has gained expertise in this and done validation for multiple battery type as cylindrical, prismatic and pouch type for single cells and battery packs and explored a wide variety of materials for PCMs. 

Indirect liquid cooling 

Indirect liquid cooling is an effective cooling strategy, used for high-capacity batteries. Cold plates of innovative designs improve the heat transfer coefficients in these systems. 

Paanduv has developed multiple systems with the similar physics and offers an accurate solution for indirect liquid cooling for batteries.

HVAC performed by our intern

Thermal Runaway

Sometimes, a temperature rise in a battery cell can lead to chain reaction due to the presence of multiple organic materials inside a cell. These consecutive reactions occur from 70 - 200 degrees range. Heat transfer from one rogue cell in the pack can propagate in the battery pack resulting in hazardous incident. Thermal runaway as a computational problem offers an enormous complexity through coupling of reactions, combustion, and heat transfer. Paanduv is efficiently analyzing such systems and offering an accurate solution to such problems.