Numerical analysis of copper foam-enhanced hybrid battery thermal management systems for lithium-ion batteries: advancing energy density and thermal control

With the growing demand for efficient and safe energy storage solutions, this study explores the effective and
optimised integration of copper metal foam in hybrid battery thermal management systems (HBTMS). A novel
HBTMS design is proposed, combining cooling plates with enhanced liquid cooling by metal foam layers in
copper tubes and phase change material (PCM) cooling improved by copper foam longitudinal fins. Numerical
simulations were conducted using a lumped-capacitance thermal model for transient battery heat generation, the
enthalpy-porosity method for PCM, Darcy-Brinkman-Forchheimer (DBF), local thermal equilibrium (LTE) and
non-equilibrium (LTNE) models for metal foam. Unlike previous studies that address passive and active cooling
separately, present investigation uniquely integrates copper foam into both domains by enhancing conduction in
the PCM and improving convection in the coolant channels. This integrated approach achieves superior thermal
control, improved energy density, and ensures operational safety. The system’s performance under high 5C
discharge rates demonstrated a significant reduction of about 9 K in the maximum battery surface temperature
compared to pure PCM cooling while maintaining the maximum battery surface temperature difference below 1
K. The study highlights the optimal copper foam layer thickness of 4 mm, balancing improved heat transfer and
minimal pressure drop. Furthermore, the incorporation of the metal foam layers reduced the number of required
cooling plates, resulting in an 11 % improvement in energy density.