Thermal Behaviour of a Cylindrical Li-Ion Battery

This paper presents an experimental evaluation of thermal and electrical performances of a 26650 cylindrical Lithium Iron Phosphate/graphite battery cell. Thermal management of Lithium batteries is a fundamental issue of electric mobility, where batteries are subjected to severe operating conditions. Therefore, battery heat generation is a very important characteristic to be studied. In this work cell performances were assessed during battery discharge at ambient temperature over a wide range of discharge rates. The cell surface temperature was measured both with thermocouples and infrared thermography. Furthermore, also the open circuit potential and entropic heat coefficient were experimentally measured. Based on this experimental data, a simplified battery thermal model was used to evaluate the battery heat generation. The results show a substantial increase of battery surface temperature especially at high discharge rates. During discharge, the heat generated is greater at low battery state of charge due to the sudden decrease of cell potential. The contributions to heat generation are also carefully evaluated.