Influence of the oblique fin arrangement on the fluid flow and thermal performance of liquid cold plate

Abstract

Electric vehicle (EV) is advancing as the transportation industry and the demand is expanding globally. The use of liquid cold plate (LCP) in EV battery is more effective in providing the desire temperature rather than using the conventional air cooling. The use of straight fins is being switched to oblique-shape fins to assist disruption of the thermal boundary layer development. The arrangement of fins in the LCP also will affect the performance of it cooling the battery. Three different arrangement of the oblique fin are developed to enhance the fluid flow and heat transfer performance. The LCP contains three arrangements of oblique fin namely as inline, incline and loureved. Experimental and numerical results reveal the good aggrement where the Nusselt number is enhanced with the louvered arrangement. Among three arrangements, loureved obtained the lowest surface temperature of the battery followed by inline and incline. It also found that Nusselt number increases as the Reynolds number increases. The LCP is able to maintain the average surface temperature of the battery below permitted working temperature of 50 °C. This shows that the present LCP with oblique fin could be a promising method for EV battery thermal management. © 2018 The Authors.