Thermal management of high-power battery systems remains a critical challenge for grid-scale energy storage and fast-charging infrastructure. This experimental and numerical study addresses that challenge by evaluating six different cooling jacket designs for prismatic lithium-ion battery packs using iron oxide nanofluids and engineered copper-foam structures.
The baseline configuration consisted of a conventional liquid-cooled jacket. Five enhanced variants were tested: one with integrated copper foam, one with an optimized cooling flow pattern, and three with fin-enhanced copper foam structures featuring straight, wavy, and curved fin geometries. Researchers conducted both laboratory testing and three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics simulations to model thermal behavior under different discharge rates.
Results showed that at moderate discharge rates, thermal improvements were modest—around 1–3% peak temperature reduction compared to baseline. However, at higher discharge rates (3 C), the performance gap widened substantially. The best-performing configuration achieved maximum temperatures of approximately 40°C with a temperature spread of under 10°C across the pack.
The key finding is that combining porous copper structures with optimized fin geometry significantly enhances heat dissipation and temperature uniformity by increasing thermal conductivity and the contact area between solid materials and cooling fluid. This effect becomes pronounced when batteries operate under high heat load conditions typical of fast-charging scenarios.
These design guidelines have practical applications for utility-scale battery energy storage systems, where maintaining uniform temperature distribution improves cycle efficiency and reduces safety risks. For grid operators deploying BESS for services like frequency regulation and renewable smoothing, better thermal control translates to higher usable capacity and longer asset life, directly improving the economics of energy storage deployment.
