1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a battery module and a heat dissipating unit thereof; in particular, to a battery module including a flexible heat dissipating unit.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, driven by several factors, usage of batteries have become more and more widespread, and requirements for the batteries have become higher and higher. Safety and stability of operation are important issues for batteries. Of these issues, maintaining a stable temperature for the batteries is very important.
Batteries used in electric vehicles or energy storage systems are typically cylindrically shaped, rectangularly shaped, or soft pack batteries. As known, when batteries are charged or discharged, heat is produced. Controlling the circuit and the components thereof of the battery module also produces heat. When heat inside the battery module cannot be dissipated, long periods of charge or discharge necessarily produce high temperatures in the battery module. When the temperature rises, the casing of the battery module often deforms due to heat, and the high temperature affects the capacity of the battery, reducing the efficacy of the batter or even affecting the functionality of the circuit board and the circuit components thereof, in turn increasing risks of burning or explosion. Therefore, especially in the field of electric vehicles, heat dissipation for battery modules is an especially important issue.
Current common methods of heat dissipation for battery modules include convection by air and convection by fluid. Heat dissipation via convection by air has the advantage of using simpler structures and requires lower cost. The disadvantages of heat dissipation via convection by air are lower rate of dissipation, greater variance in temperature between batteries, and an open design which is vulnerable to foreign particles such as dust. Heat dissipation via convection by fluid has higher rate of dissipation, smaller variance in temperature between batteries, and a sealed design which protects the system against dust particles. The disadvantage of heat dissipation via convection by fluid is that heat dissipation channels need to be designed for cooling fluids, and the heat dissipation channels need to be in close contact with the batteries in order to achieve the effect of heat dissipation.
When using rectangularly shaped or soft pack batteries, the casing of the battering expands due to high temperature. Therefore, design of the heat dissipation channel need to take into account the thermal expansion of the battery, in order for the heat dissipation channel to be in close contact with the battery for effective heat dissipation. In order to solve this problem, current designs use compressible material as a buffer layer between the channel and the batteries. When the batteries expand due to heat, the compressible material of the buffer layer is compressed to adjust the space between the batteries and the channel. The disadvantage of this method is that typical metal are not easily compressible material, and more compressible material are non-metal having lower heat conduction rates than those of metal. Compressible material ensures close contact between the batteries and the channel but have low conduction rate itself, forming a barrier to heat transmission between the battery and the channel.
Hence, the present inventor believes the above mentioned disadvantages can be overcome, and through devoted research combined with application of theory, finally proposes the present disclosure which has a reasonable design and effectively improves upon the above mentioned disadvantages.
The object of the present disclosure is to solve the problem of poor contact between a coolant heat dissipating unit and batteries due to thermal expansion of the batteries, which causes poor rate of heat dissipation.
In order to achieve the aforementioned object, the present disclosure provides a heat dissipating unit having a main body. The main body includes at least one expandable fluid channel, at least one fluid inlet and at least one fluid outlet. The expandable fluid channel, the fluid inlet and the fluid outlet are communicated. The main body is adjacent to a heat producing device. When a coolant flows through the fluid inlet into the expandable fluid channel, at least one side wall of the expandable fluid channel is pushed outward by the coolant and expands, tightly contacting the surface of the heat producing body.
In order to achieve the aforementioned object, the present disclosure further provides a battery module having a set of battery cells and a heat dissipating unit. The set of battery cells includes a plurality of arranged battery cells, and any two neighboring battery cells have a channel formed therebetween. The heat dissipating unit has a main body. The main body is bendably disposed in the channels, and includes at least one expandable fluid channel, at least one fluid inlet and at least one fluid outlet. The expandable fluid channel, the fluid inlet and the fluid outlet are communicated. When a coolant flows through the fluid inlet into the expandable fluid channel, at least one side wall of the expandable fluid channel is pushed outward by the coolant and expands, tightly contacting the surface of the surface of the battery cell adjacent to the heat dissipating unit.
In order to achieve the aforementioned object, the present disclosure further provides a battery module having a base, a set of battery cells and a plurality of heat dissipating units. The base includes an input opening, an output opening, and a plurality of fluid channels. The set of battery cells is disposed on the base and includes a plurality of arranged battery cells, and any two neighboring battery cells have a channel formed therebetween. Each of the heat dissipating unit is disposed in the channels. Each of the heat dissipating units has a main body. Each of the main bodies includes an expandable fluid channel, a fluid inlet and a fluid outlet. The expandable fluid channel, the fluid inlet and the fluid outlet of each main body are communicated. The expandable fluid channel and the fluid channels of the base are also communicated. When a coolant flows through the input opening of the base, at least one side wall of each of the expandable fluid channels is pushed outward by the coolant and expands, tightly contacting the surface of the surface of the battery cell adjacent to the heat dissipating units.
The present disclosure has the following advantages:
The heat dissipating unit is flexible so can be bent according to the arrangement of the battery cells, for disposing the heat dissipating unit adjacent to the side walls of the battery cells. Therefore, the present disclosure can be applied in differently arranged battery modules.
The heat dissipating unit has an expandable fluid channel. When a coolant flows into the expandable fluid channel, at least one side wall thereof is pushed by the coolant and expands outward, tightly contacting the surface of a battery cell, thereby effectively transmitting the heat produced by the battery cell outward. The heat dissipating unit can use metal material (e.g. aluminum foil), in addition to the abovementioned characteristic of being in close contact with the battery cell, to achieve the effect of high rate of heat dissipation. High rate of heat dissipation stabilized the output voltage of the battery module, effectively increasing the life span of the battery module.
At least one side wall of the expandable fluid channel of the heat dissipating unit is flexible. So when the casing of the battery cell expands outward due to heat, the side wall of each of the expandable fluid channels maintain a tight contact with the battery cells to achieve the effect of high rate of heat dissipation.
When a coolant or a heating fluid flows into the expandable fluid channel such that at least one side wall of the expandable fluid channel expands outward tightly contacting the battery cell, the expandable fluid channel has the ability to restrict and fix the position of the battery cells. In particular, the battery cells of battery modules applied in electric vehicles are fixed by the side walls of the expanded expandable fluid channels, increasing the resistance to shock of the battery module when the vehicle travelling.
In order to further the understanding regarding the present disclosure, the following embodiments are provided along with illustrations to facilitate the disclosure of the present disclosure.
The aforementioned illustrations and following detailed descriptions are exemplary for the purpose of further explaining the scope of the present disclosure. Other objectives and advantages related to the present disclosure will be illustrated in the subsequent descriptions and appended drawings.
Specifically, in the figures of the present embodiment, the heat dissipating unit 1 is ribbon shaped, and has a single expandable fluid channel 101. The two ends of the expandable fluid channel 101 are respectively formed with the fluid inlet 102 and the fluid outlet 103, and are disposed respectively at the two ends of the ribbon-shaped main body 10. In practice, the present disclosure is not limited thereto. For example, the heat dissipating unit 1 can include a plurality of expandable fluid channels 101, and the fluid inlet 102 and the fluid outlet 103 can be disposed at different locations according to need.
In practice, the heat dissipating unit 1 can be made of metal. For example, the expandable fluid channel 101 can be but is not limited to being made of two sheets of aluminum sealed at the top and bottom, or a single sheet of aluminum folded and sealed.
As shown in
In
Alternatively as shown in
As shown in
In practice, according to the flow rate of the coolant within the expandable fluid channel 101, the width of the expandable fluid channel 101 can be slightly smaller or equal to the width of the channel 2111 between the battery cells 211. By this configuration, even when the casings of the battery cells 211 expands due to heat during operation, tight contact is still ensured between the expandable fluid channel 101 and the battery cells 211. In other words, when the battery cells 211 expand due to heat during operation, the heat dissipating unit 1 of the present disclosure can still tightly contact the expandable fluid channel 101 and the coolant therein with the battery cells 211, effectively dissipating the heat from the battery cells 211.
In another implementation, if the quantity of battery cells 211 of the set of battery cells 21 is very large, then battery cells 211 at the rear portion of the path of flow of the coolant cannot dissipate heat at the same rate due to increase in temperature of the coolant. In this case, the set of battery cells 21 can be portioned into a plurality of regions, and a heat dissipating unit 1 is disposed in each of the regions, so that the battery cells 21 can dissipate heat at the same or similar rates, which causes the battery cells 21 of the battery module 2 to output the same or similar voltages. The battery module 2 provides stable voltages and the life span of the battery module 2 is increased.
Of particular note, in particular implementations, the base plate 22 of the present embodiment as shown in the figures can be replaced by a base having a fluid channel, and the fluid inlet 102 and the fluid outlet 103 can be communicated with the fluid channel of the base. Through an input opening and an output opening of the base, the coolant flows into the heat dissipating unit 1. The position of the heat dissipating unit 1 in the battery module 2 can be fixed through the base. Additionally, a plurality of fixing structures, e.g. bumps, pivot shafts, snap elements, retaining slots, etc., can be disposed on the base for fixing heat dissipating units 1.
Different from the ribbon-shaped heat dissipating units 1 of the previous embodiments, the heat dissipating unit 1′ of the present embodiment is unitized and modular. As shown in
Different from the previous embodiments, the heat dissipating units 1′ can be integrally formed by using flexible material, and disposed between the battery cells. The material of the unitized and sheet-shaped heat dissipating units 1′ of the present embodiment not including the portion of the expandable fluid channel 101′ can be chosen according to need, and can be a flexible or inflexible material. For example, the expandable fluid channel 101′ can be sandwiched between two support plate of greater stiffness to form a unitized heat dissipating unit 1′.
As shown in
As shown in FIG. 9′, the heat dissipating units 1′ can be disposed serially on a base 30 (the quantity of heat dissipating units 1′ in the figure is that of only one implementation, and the present disclosure is not limited thereto), for forming a heat dissipation module 3′. As shown in the figure, the base 30 can have an input channel 301, an output channel 302 and a plurality of communicating channels 303. The input channel 301 and the output channel 302 respectively have an input opening 3011 and an output opening 3021 formed at one end thereof. The fluid inlet 102′ of one of the heat dissipating units 1′ is connected to the input channel 301 of the base 30 and the fluid outlet 103′ of another of the heat dissipating units 1′ is connected to the output channel 302 of the base 30. The rest of the heat dissipating units 1′ are communicated through the communicating channels 303 of the base 30.
Of particular note, as shown in
Specifically, as shown in
When the coolant flows through the input opening 3011 of the base 30, the coolant can enter the expandable fluid channels 101′ of the respective heat dissipating units 1′ of the first group A through the input channel 301, such that side walls of the expandable fluid channels 101′ are pushed outward by the coolant and expand, tightly contacting the surface of the battery cells 411. After flowing past the first group A, the coolant flows into the heat dissipating units 1′ of the intermediary group C through the communicating channels 303 of the base 30, and then into the expandable fluid channels 101′ of the heat dissipating units 1′ of the second group B through another communicating channel 303 of the base 30. Finally, the coolant flows through the output channel 302 and out from the output opening 3021 of the base 30. Of particular note, in practice, the distances between neighboring battery cells 411 and the distances between neighboring heat dissipating units 1′ can be adjusted such that the coolant flows into the expandable fluid channels 101′ of the respective heat dissipating units 1′ of the same group evenly and almost at the same time, so that the battery cells 411 are subject to similar cooling effects.
Specifically, as shown in
In another implementation, the diameters of the fluid inlets 102′ of the respective heat dissipating units 1′ can be adjusted so that the coolant enters the expandable fluid channels 101′ of the respective heat dissipating units 1′ of each group almost at the same time. For example, heat dissipating units 1′ further from the input opening 3011 of the base 30 can have expandable fluid channels 101′ having greater diameter, and the expandable fluid channels 101′ closer to the input opening 3011 can have smaller diameters. In another particular implementation, the input channel 301 of the base 30 can be slanted. By varying the depth of the fluid channel, the pressure of the fluid changes and the coolant can enter the expandable fluid channels 101′ of the respective heat dissipating units 1′ of the first group A evenly and almost at the same time. Alternatively, the input channel 301 can be tube-shaped having varying diameter for controlling the pressure of the coolant, such that the coolant enters the expandable fluid channels 101′ of the respective heat dissipating units 1′ evenly and almost at the same time.
Of particular note, in practice, the input opening 3011 of the base 30 can be connected to a pump, and the output opening 3021 of the base 30 can be connected to another pump, for pumping the coolant to enter the base 30 at a steady flow rate. Additionally, before the coolant enters the base 30, the pump connected to the output opening 3021 can first draw out air from the expandable fluid channels 101′, such that when the coolant flows into the base 30 the coolant can more easily fill up the expandable fluid channels 101′.
The descriptions illustrated supra set forth simply the preferred embodiments of the present disclosure; however, the characteristics of the present disclosure are by no means restricted thereto. All changes, alternations, or modifications conveniently considered by those skilled in the art are deemed to be encompassed within the scope of the present disclosure delineated by the following claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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103101149 | Jan 2014 | TW | national |