Model for heat generation estimation in electric vehicle battery under mechanical load condition

Constant monitoring of Electric vehicle (EV) battery behaviour, and in particular heat generation, is vital for vehicle and occupant safety. EV safety is considered an important area of research in the automotive industry. Recent safety issues after EV collision raised the need for detecting the onset of thermal runaway to protect occupants and minimize damage to the vehicle and battery pack. Thermal runaway can spread quickly in case of crash/impact to battery where battery electrochemistry, structural deformation and impact location play major role. In this research collision induced issues are discussed in detail and factors which fuel these issues are identified. To better understand crash induced battery properties a model is required to represent battery operation which also integrates electrical, thermal and physical behaviour due to impact. In this research cylindrical lithium ion cell is investigated using finite element model (FEM) for its material properties and possible structural deformation. For validation of proposed model simulation and experimental data is compared. There are some limitations of proposed model in this paper, for simplification of model heat dissipation is neglected and no cooling system is used, secondly in this paper ohmic heat, reversible heat and irreversible heat are neglected. The purpose to develop this model is to avoid complexity and achieve accuracy, so that parameters used in this research are determined through experimental work cited in the literature.