Three-Dimensional Thermal Modeling of a Lithium-Ion Battery Considering the Combined Effects of the Electrical and Thermal Contact Resistances between Current Collecting Tab and Lead Wire

Abstract

This paper reports on a three-dimensional thermal modeling approach for a lithium-ion battery (LIB). The combined effects of the thermal and electrical contact resistances between the current collecting tab of an LIB cell and the lead wire connecting the cell to an external cycler are considered explicitly in addition to the heat generated as a result of electrochemical reactions and ohmic heating in the electrode region of the battery cell. The effect of electrical contact resistance is taken into account when calculating current collecting tab heating, and the effect of thermal contact resistance is included in the heat flux boundary condition at the contact area between the current collecting tab and the lead wire. The three-dimensional thermal modeling is validated by comparing the modeling results with experimental temperature distributions from IR images during discharge in an LIB cell.

Three-dimensional Multi-Particle Electrochemical Model of LiFePO4 Cells based on a Resistor Network Methodology

“…In addition, at the beginning of the discharge, Fig. 13-a, the normal current density is much larger at locations close the tabs, which is in agreement with previous studies [24][25][26][27][39][40][41]52,[43][44][45]. In this figure, the deviation between the maximum and minimum current densities defined as max I n ð Þ À min I n ð Þ ð Þ=min I n ð Þ Â 100 reaches to more than 13%.…”

“…Since three-dimensional simulations have to cover all the involved phenomena occurring in a wide range of length scales (from diffusion in nano particles to the electric current transfer in the current collector plates), their computation might become tremendously complicated and computationally intensive. Therefore, almost all simulations for larger batteries assume perpendicular current flow between current collectors [24][25][26][27][39][40][41][42][43][44][45]. They actually consider the electric current is distributed two-dimensionally on the current collectors and crosses the inside layers of the battery perpendicular to the current collectors' plane.…”

Experimental temperature distributions in a prismatic lithium-ion battery at varying conditions

“…Generally, cylindrical cells designs are limited to below 4 Ah, and prismatic designs are used for higher capacity ratings [18]. Stacked prismatic batteries consist of many individual cells with electrical connections to a common positive and negative current tab [19]. Alternating sheets of positive and negative electrode current collector sheets are stacked between sheets of separator in such a way that the current tab of each positive sheet and each negative sheet are aligned on opposite sides.…”

Thermal Design for the Pouch-Type Large-Format Lithium-Ion Batteries

“…Therefore, the temperature distribution must be evaluated together with the electrical behavior for the large-format cell. To such end, a thermo-electrical model is essential.Kim et al [5][6][7][8][9][10] proposed a computationally efficient model to predict the thermal and electrical behaviors for the pouch cell. In the electrical sub-model, the electrical potentials of the current collector are calculated using the Ohm's law, and the current density traversing the separator is assumed to be a function of the potential difference between the positive and negative electrodes.…”