A Holistic Approach to Improve a Liquid Cooled Battery Module

This publication investigates the process of improving an existing liquid cooled battery module in terms of lightweight design and cooling capabilities for production processes suitable for series production by using a holistic approach. It starts by identifying components with too high efforts using a method called Extended Target Weighing Approach (ETWA) and continues using complementary CFD and thermal simulations to guide the conceptualization of new solutions methodically. While conceptualizing and designing the parts to improve on key aspects of the battery module, a new tool was developed to select the best combination of material, process and manufacturing for these components. For this particular battery module, using the ETWA, we identified the cell mount, the housing and the plethora of components responsible for the sealing functionality as too heavy. Due to this, simulations of the coolant flow and temperature distribution were performed to guide the design choices for the cell mount. The thermal and CFD simulations revealed that a reduction of the initial cell mount height is possible while keeping the maximum temperatures within reason. Housing concepts were developed considering design limitations due to the manufacturing processes recommended by the selection tool. The used tool chain enabled an objective and comprehensible decision-making to optimize the battery module considering lightweight design and cooling capabilities.