Numerical studies on topological design of cold plate for a cell-to-pack battery system

The advent of highly integrated cell-to-pack technology highly demands vehicular battery thermal management systems. In light of this, the present study introduces an innovative cold plate designed through a multi-objective topology optimization approach, aiming to reduce parasitic power consumption and enhance heat dissipation capabilities simultaneously. Numerical investigations explore the effects of inlet/outlet arrangements and weighting factors (w) on the topological results, evaluated using the performance evaluation criterion (PEC). A single inlet and dual outlet topological cold plate (TCP-2), with w of 0.5, provides an optimal trade-off between heat transfer and flow characteristics. When subjected to an inlet pressure of 250 Pa, this configuration yields a 1.2 % and 4 % enhancement in PEC values compared to configurations with w of 0.25 and 0.75, respectively. Furthermore, the influence of inlet pressure, inlet temperature and charging rate is evaluated. The comparison with the rectangular channel cold plate (RCP), the serpentine channel cold plate (SCP) and the pin–fin channel cold plate (PCP) reveals that TCP-2 outperforms these conventional designs in overall performance under various conditions. And this advantage is amplified at higher inlet temperatures and charging rates. For instance, at a charge rate of 2C, the percentage differences in PEC relative to TCP-2 reach 14.5 % for RCP, 85.9 % for SCP and 57.9 % for PCP.