Cold Plate Thermal Designs for EV Battery Systems

The purpose of this report is to investigate cold plate thermal design approaches for electric vehicle (EV) battery systems that satisfy the temperature management requirements to control the heat generation to best optimize battery performance, ensure safety, and maximize battery life. As a design consideration, material selection and integration with battery systems while continuing to address issues related to coolant flow dynamics and thermal interface materials (TIM) are discussed. Field trails and experimental testing has shown that the aluminum and copper cold plate maintain safe battery temperatures. Future ideas for thermostat advances may include composite materials, phase change materials and machine learning for real time optimization.