What Is Thermal Management In Electric Vehicle, Purpose, Causes

Hello guys, welcome back to our blog. Here in this article, we will discuss thermal management in electric vehicles, the purpose of thermal management, and what causes thermal effects in electric cars.

If you have any electrical, electronics, and computer science doubts, then ask questions. You can also catch me on Instagram – CS Electrical & Electronics.

Also, read:

What Is Thermal Management In Electric Vehicle

The battery management system is the trending electrical technology that is used as the main controlling center in the electrical vehicle. As we all know that the electrical vehicle runs with the help of the electricity which is stored in the energy storage systems used in the vehicle.

The electrical vehicles are completely different from the conventional vehicles as the conventional vehicles run with the help of the fuels which generate some the harmful carbon monoxide gasses which will pollute the environment but coming to the electrical vehicles are a pure form of energy and they use electricity to run motors near the wheels so there will not be any type of burning process going on in the vehicle which makes the electrical vehicle pollution-free vehicle and it is also freed from the transport taxes in many countries.

As the usage of electrical vehicles increased made the battery industry grow rapidly as the vehicles are totally dependent on energy storage systems. So, this made the increase in the use of the batteries, and for the significant operation of the electrical vehicles the batteries and energy storage systems used in the vehicle have to be monitored and managed.

To run this type of electrical vehicle the batteries should work efficiently so in that case the electrical vehicle needs the battery monitoring and integrable operation control center finally here comes the battery management system which will monitor the operations and it also controls the faults that will be happened either internally or externally to the battery when it is performing operations.

The battery management system plays a major role in the thermal management of the electrical vehicle, there are severe faults that may occur due to the thermal runaways and the temperature differences between the ambient temperature and the battery temperature.

Thermal management of the battery plays a key role as lithium-ion batteries have a specific melting point. The internal faults in the battery may cause the thermal runaway which may cause vast exothermic reactions which are very dangerous. Thermal runaways are mainly caused due to the extreme charging or discharging cycles which may lead to a heavy increase in the temperature of the batteries when it reaches the melting point of the lithium which leads to violent reactions over the battery.

The exothermic reactions take place while the changes in the temperature occur the first thing which happens is the exothermic reaction in the SEI composition which causes the heat release in the battery which is a sort of thermal runaway. As we know the battery consists of an anode and cathode, during this SEI composition the oxygen will be released by the cathode which is the more needed thing for burning.

The oxygen released by the cathode will be consumed by the anode which is made up of lithium, this increases the pressure and temperature in the lithium-ion battery which leads to the burn of the battery and will release the flammable gases and toxic gases which are very harmful.

Failure of the cooling system will also be one of the thermal faults which are majorly caused by the battery. The cooling system is used by the battery management system to maintain the relatable temperature between the environment and the lithium-ion battery.

Thermal equilibrium plays a vital role while the battery is performing in the electrical vehicle, to maintain the thermal equilibrium the cooling system is designed for the lithium-ion cells by the battery management systems which can set the battery-free from temperature differences and thermal runaways.

The temperature sensor is the key component for the thermal management of the battery management system. The temperature sensor is placed near the lithium-ion cells to closely monitor the temperature difference between the ambient temperature and cell temperature. The thermal sensors monitor the temperature and if there are any temperature changes then it will senses the changes and covey the signal to the thermal management system of the battery. The cooling system is the major aspect as when the temperature raises this will be used to optimize the temperature and it will bring the surroundings of the battery to normal temperature.

The failure of the cooling system will lead to huge losses as the battery management system will lose the optimization control of the temperature of the battery where the heat of the battery will become out of control and there will be severe losses appearing across the battery. The main reason behind the flames and toxic gases released from the electrical vehicle is because of lack of a thermal management system in the electrical vehicle’s battery management system. The ambient temperature will be changed according to the climate changes the thermal management of the battery should consider the surroundings and they have to instruct the cooling system to maintain the temperature optimization.

The sensor operation will help the battery management system to find out the temperature faults caused by the short circuit, overcharging, and other internal faults. The use of sensors and the cooling system made the thermal management very simple but the temperature maintenance is still a very big challenge to the electrical automobile companies as a lot of vehicles are losing their productivity due to the failure of the thermal management and battery management system.

From all the above points and the techniques, we can conclude that the electrical vehicle trends will be rapidly increasing as the control systems of the electrical vehicles are rapidly increasing and giving the finest outputs which are much needed for the electrical automobile industry. Thermal management of the battery will make electrical vehicle sales grow.

This was about “ What Is Thermal Management In Electric Vehicle“. I hope this article may help you all a lot. Thank you for reading.

Also, read:

About The Author

Chetan Shidling

Automotive | Technical Blogger | Engineer | Content Creator

See author's posts

Share Now