Energy Storage Science and Technology

   

Study on the thermal runaway characteristic of lithium-ion batteries and its thermal management under local overheating conditions

Xiuwen TAN(), Ling LI()   

  1. School of Energy and Power Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China
  • Received:2025-01-22 Revised:2025-02-11 Online:2025-02-24
  • Contact: Ling LI E-mail:yyanine@163.com;liling@usst.edu.cn

Abstract:

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are widely used while sensitive to temperature. There is a risk of thermal runaway (TR) during practical work. Especially for large-capacity batteries under high-rate charge/discharge conditions, the risk of TR can be increased. A TR model is established to study the battery TR process caused by pole overheating. The heat propagation and TR characteristics of the LIBs were analyzed. The results show that the pole overheating caused by loose connecting plates can lead to serious heat accumulation problems under the battery tab. With the increased heating power, the TR trigger time is greatly advanced, and the peak temperature is increased. Compared to the bottom and front heating conditions, the temperature rise during the TR caused by pole heating is reduced by 17.2% and 10.9%, respectively, and the battery will reach a higher peak temperature in less time. In addition, it was found that the heat propagation characteristics of the battery under pole heating are similar to the overheating of the tab region caused by the high-rate charge/discharge of the LIBs. According to it, a liquid cooling plate with oblique channels was designed, and the heat dissipation effect of this cooling plate was analyzed. The results demonstrated that the oblique channel cooling plate can effectively suppress the TR of the LIBs and improve the temperature uniformity of the battery. Compared with straight channel cooling plate, the standard deviation of the battery temperature under oblique channel cooling plate can be further reduced by 18.9%. This work provides a reference for the LIBs risk assessment and the structural design of liquid cooling plates.

Key words: lithium-ion battery, thermal runaway, thermal management

CLC Number: