• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2011

The performance and life-cycle costs of electric vehicle(EV) and hybrid electric vehicle(HEV) depend inherently on battery packs. Temperature uniformity in a pack is an important factor for obtaining optimum performance for an EV or HEV battery pack, because uneven temperature distribution in a pack leads to electrically unbalanced battery cells and reduced pack performance. In this work, a three-dimensional modeling was carried out to investigate the effects of operating conditions on the thermal behavior of a lithium-ion battery pack for an EV or HEV application. Thermal conductivities of various compartments of the battery were estimated based on the equivalent network of parallel/series thermal resistances of battery components. Heat generation rate in a cell was calculated using the modeling results of the potential and current density distributions of a battery cell.