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Thermal management analysis of a Li-ion

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Article in Energy February 2016
Impact Factor: 4.84 DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2015.12.064

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Energy 96 (2016) 355e371

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy

Thermal management analysis of a Li-ion battery cell using phase

change material loaded with carbon bers
Fereshteh Samimi a, b, Aziz Babapoor b, Mohammadmehdi Azizi b, Gholamreza Karimi b, *
a
b

Department of Chemical Engineering, Shiraz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shiraz, Iran
Department of Chemical Engineering, Shiraz University, Shiraz 7134851154, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 26 May 2015
Received in revised form
14 December 2015
Accepted 16 December 2015
Available online xxx

High latent heat of PCMs (phase change materials) has made them as one of the most important materials for thermal management purposes. However, PCMs low thermal diffusivities could limit their use
in applications which require fast thermal response. The goal of this study is to simulate thermal performance of a lithium ion battery cell in the presence of carbon ber-PCM composites. The effect of
carbon ber loading within the PCM on thermal performance is studied and the results are compared
with the experimental data. The results showed that the presence of carbon bers increases the effective
thermal conductivity of PCM and hence inuences temperature distribution within the cell. PCM composites containing higher percentages of carbon bers present a more uniform temperature distribution.
The results showed that the minimum and maximum thermal conductivity enhancement of 85% and
155% respectively (105% on average). A reasonable agreement is obtained between the simulation results
and the experimental data.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Li-ion battery
PCMs (phase change materials)
Carbon ber
Simulation
Thermal energy management

1. Introduction
Robust, reliable and efcient storage units are required as an
integral part of renewable energy systems due to their output
unpredictability [1]. Energy storage makes the systems more cost
effective by reducing the wastage of energy and also enhances the
performance and reliability of energy systems. The energy storage
can also solve the imbalance between the energy supply and consumption of energy that normally exist in the most systems and
thereby helps in saving of capital costs. It is also desirable for more
effective and environmentally benign energy use [2,3].
Thermal energy might be stored in the form of sensible heat
(energy stored by raising the temperature of the storage material
solid or liquid) or latent heat (energy stored by either melting or
freezing when a substance changes from one phase to another).
When the reverse process occurs, this energy becomes available. It
has been generally accepted that latent heat thermal energy storage
technique is a good engineering option primarily because higher
energy storage density can be obtained with lower temperature
difference between storage and retrieval [1e5]. Phase change

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 98 71 36473170.

E-mail addresses: karimi1342@gmail.com, ghkarimi@shirazu.ac.ir (G. Karimi).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.12.064
0360-5442/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

materials are capable of storing and releasing thermal energy at a

nearly xed temperature by taking advantage of their latent heat
(heat of fusion) during phase change. They change from solid to
liquid (liquid to solid) at the melting (solidication) point, reacting
by means of external temperature changes. The melting temperature varies over a wide range for different PCMs (phase change
materials), e.g., parafns, fatty acids, sugar alcohols, salt hydrates,
etc. [1,5,6].
Amongst the various kinds of PCMs, parafn wax presents
applicable characteristics such as large latent heat of fusion,
negligible supercooling, low vapor pressure during melting,
chemical stability, and total recyclability. Therefore parafn wax is
being normally considered as one of the most prospective candidates in energy systems. However, the relatively low thermal
conductivity associated with parafn wax leads to lower heat
transfer rates during melting/solidication processes [1,2]. To
overcome this problem, the introduction of highly conductive
materials to form a composite of PCM and thermal conductivity
promoter have been recently proposed; using different types of ns
on the metal wall, and adding metal foam matrix and carbon-based
materials to the PCM are the common promoters used to enlarge
the thermal conductivity of parafn wax [6e12]. Although, metal
foams have an ultralight porous structure with high strength-todensity ratio and relatively high thermal conductivity [12], carbon

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F. Samimi et al. / Energy 96 (2016) 355e371

Table 1
Thermo-physical properties of parafn mixture.
Melting point temperature ( C) Density (liquid phase) (kg/m3) Density (solid phase) (kg/m3) Thermal conductivity of solid phase (W/m K) Latent heat of fusion (kJ/kg)
42e49

768

912

0.21

242

Table 2
Thermo-physical properties of carbon ber.
Name

Thermal conductivity (W/m K)

Density (kg/m3)

Specic heat capacity (J/kg K)

Carbon ber

50

2000

500

Table 3
Labels of samples (ber length 1 mm).
Sample label

Mass fraction of ber [%]

W0
W1
W2
W3
W4

0
0.32
0.46
0.56
0.69

materials are more proper candidates for thermal and electrical

conductive llers because of their superior thermal and electrical
properties, prominent chemical stability as well as larger specic
surface area and lower density than those of metals [10].
Lithium-ion (Li-ion) cells have shown excellent performance for
high energy storage density and competitive cost [13,14]. Development of Li-ion batteries enabled progress in mobile communications, consumer electronics, automotive and aerospace
industries. However, Li-ion batteries suffers from temperature rise
beyond their normal operating range resulting in a fast aging and
accelerated capacity fade. Therefore, thermal management of Li-ion
batteries has an effective role in large power applications in
addressing the thermal safety apart from enhancing the performance and extending the cycle life. Utilization of PCM is a common
approach for thermal management of Li-ion battery packs. The PCM
introduced in the cell and/or battery supplies a compact and simple
design for controlling battery temperature in Li-ion technology
[14e19].

There are several studies conducted on thermal management of

batteries. In one review by Al-Hallaj et al. [20], it was shown that
the technology base for such a PCM integrated in the battery
module is available in a relatively simple design, and thereby
providing appreciable cost reduction compared to active cooling
systems. Tong et al. [21] demonstrated that safety issues raised
from a lithium-ion battery during operation can be attributed to the
variation of its temperature. Smith et al. [22] showed that proper
comprehending of heat generation and design of heat dissipation
paths are essential for assuring the safety of lithium ion modules
during abuse events such as external shorts. Abdalla et al. [23]
provided blocks for Li-ion battery thermal management. Thermal
properties of PCM-EG (phase change material-expanded graphite)
composites have been veried. The results indicated that the PCM/
EG composites are strongly affected by their ambient temperatures.
When the percentage of parafn wax increases in the composite
material, the thermal conductivity was improved at low operating
temperatures while reverse behaviors was observed at relatively
high operating temperature. Frusteri et al. [24] evaluated the inuence of carbon bers loading on thermal conductivity
enhancement of an inorganic PCM. Fibers of different lengths were
randomly distributed in an eutectic mixture of Mg (NO3)2
6H2OeMgCl2 6H2OeNH4NO3 (as a PCM) and thermal conductivity
measurements of the obtained composite were accomplished by
hot-wire method. It was shown that the homogeneity grade of the
composite (PCM and ber) plays a signicant role in the improvement of heat diffusion [25]. Recently, Javani et al. [26] have applied
a nite volume based numerical model to investigate thermal

Fig. 1. Experimental setup and the data acquisition system (1-power source 2-container 3-battery module 4-thermocouples 5-temperature indicator 6-data acquisition system)
[26].

F. Samimi et al. / Energy 96 (2016) 355e371

management of an electric vehicle battery pack using PCM. The

effects of different operating conditions were compared for the
submodule in the presence and the absence of PCM. A more uniform temperature distribution was observed when the PCM was
employed.
Despite a large number of investigations have been conducted
for thermal management of Li-ion batteries, there is a fundamental lack of information on the optimum condition of PCM
composites, especially those which involve carbon bers. Therefore the objective of the present work is to examine the heat
transfer enhancement due to presence of carbon ber in a PCM in
a more detail. To this end, thermal management of a discharging
lithium ion battery is simulated in the presence of various cooling
media (a) air, (b) PCM and (c) PCM loaded with carbon bers using
CFD (computational uid dynamic) technique. The simulation

Fig. 2. Variation of temperature of the battery cell, (a): t 0 and (b): t 60 (min).

357

results are compared with the experimental data available in the

literature [27] to verify the composite effectiveness for thermal
management purposes. A very good agreement was observed
between experimental and simulation results for thermal conductivity which is the most signicant parameter in thermal
management. The numerical and experimental results can be
used as a guideline for designing BTMS (battery thermal management system).
2. Experimentations
Battery discharge is a highly exothermic process. This may
lead to accumulation of heat inside the battery if the generated
heat cannot be removed efciently [20,28]. This accumulation of
heat becomes more severe if the battery is operated under
insulating conditions or in a hot environment. Under such conditions, a signicant temperature rise can develop within the
battery and consequently, risking thermal runaway [28]. Having
large amount of latent energy at small temperature changes,
PCMs can be used to absorb and store the heat generated by the
batteries while minimizing the temperature variation in the
battery pack [13,28].
In this work, a mixture of parafns provided from Merck was
used as the continuous phase change medium with the desired
melting point temperature. Thermo-physical properties of parafn
mixture are listed in Table 1. Carbon bers were provided from
Zoltex Corporation. The mixture of carbon bers and melted
parafn was agitated for 2 h at a temperature above its melting
point to ensure that a perfect mixture is obtained. Thermo-physical
properties of carbon ber are listed in Table 2.
Various composites having different mass fraction of carbon ber were produced and utilized in a series of experiments to study
the effects of carbon ber loading on the heat transfer rate. Table 3
displays the specications of each experiment.
In practice, the amount of heat dissipation in a Li-ion battery is a
function of state of charge, rate of discharge (or charge) and the
operating temperature. For a regular AA Li-ion battery (e.g.
14500AA), this amount is reported to be approximately 2 W on
average [29,30]. In this work, a cylindrical battery simulator
(14.5 mm in diameter and 50.5 mm in length) was used to simulate
an operating battery during discharge. Fig. 1 shows the experimental setup and the data acquisition system. The battery like

Fig. 3. Time variations of battery surface temperature in the presence of air (natural
convection).

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F. Samimi et al. / Energy 96 (2016) 355e371

Fig. 4. Variations of temperature distributions within the battery cell in the presence of PCM at (a): t 0, (b): t 30, (c): t 60, (d): t 90 (min).

simulator dissipates heat at a constant heat ux set at of 870 W/m2

equivalent to 2 W. The battery simulator is mounted in the center of
a 6 mm-thick rectangular container lled with PCM or PCM
composites.
Babapoor et al. [27] have recently showed that the presence of
carbon ber in the parafn mixture can signicantly improve the
effective thermal conductivity of the cooling medium and hence
carbon ber loaded PCM can be very suitable for thermal management of battery cells in a module or stack.

3. Mathematical modeling
Fig. 1 displays the problem. A cylindrical battery is situated in
the center of a rectangular container lled with the PCM composite
to simulate the experimental setup. Heat is generated within the
battery and dissipated into the PCM as the cooling medium. As time
elapses, the PCM is heated and the melting starts at the batteryPCM interface. The melting zone extends towards the container
boundaries. For the axisymmetric cylindrical system considered,
the governing equations for continuity, momentum and energy are
as follows [31e33]:

Fig. 5. Time variations of battery surface temperature in the presence of PCM.

F. Samimi et al. / Energy 96 (2016) 355e371

359

Fig. 6. Variations of temperature distributions within the battery cell in the presence of carbon ber loaded PCM (W4) (a): t 0, (b): t 30, (c): t 60, (d): t 90.

Fig. 7. Variation of battery surface temperature in the presence of carbon ber loaded
PCM (W4).

Fig. 8. Variation of battery surface temperature versus time for various carbon ber
loadings.

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F. Samimi et al. / Energy 96 (2016) 355e371

Continuity equation:

vr 1 v
v

rryr ryz 0
vt r vr
vz

(1)

Momentum equations:

!
vu
!
ru:Vu VP r g V:t F
vt

(2)

!
where F (volume force) is dened as below:

Fr 0

(3)




Fz rgb T  Tref

(4)

where Tref is the reference temperature and is equal to 293.15 K and

b is volumetric thermal expansion coefcient (1/K).
The initial conditions are:

At t 0 :

ur uz 0

(5)

At t 0 :

P rg hbatt  z

(6)

where hbatt is the height of the battery.

Energy equation:

(7)

The initial and boundary conditions are:

T 298:15K

At boundaries :

The energy equation for the cooling medium (air, PCM, carbon
ber-PCM composite), is as follows:

rCp

vT
rCp rCp u:VT V:kVT Q
vt

At t 0

Fig. 10. Variation of cell temperature in r-direction for various carbon ber loadings.

 n:  kVT hT  T

(11)

The thermal conductivity, specic heat and density of the PCM

are calculated as bellow:

(8)

kpcm qkphase1 1  qkphase2

(12)

(9)

 
 
 
Cp pcm q Cp phase1 1  q Cp phase2

(13)

where T is the ambient temperature and equals to 298.15 K.

The battery heat equation can be written as:

vT
rCp Q
vt

vT
rCp u:VT V:kVT
vt

(10)
3

where Q, as the heat generated is equal to 236.4 (kW/m ) equivalent to 2 W per battery.

rpcm

 
 
qrphase1 Cp phase1 1  qrphase2 Cp phase2
 
 

q Cp phase1 1  q Cp phase2

(14)

where q is the liquid fraction. For carbon ber-PCM composite the

latent heat content can be expressed as a function of the latent heat
of the PCM (L), PCM composite mass fraction (f) and liquid fraction
(q) as indicated in Eq. (15).

Lcomp L4q

(15)

The liquid fraction is described as the mass ratio of melted PCM

to the total mass of PCM in the uid. The PCM melting temperature
ranges from Tsolidus to Tliquidus.
Density, specic heat capacity, latent heat and viscosity of the
carbon ber loaded PCM are dened as follows [33e39]:

rcomp 4rc 1  4rpcm





4 rCp c 1  4 rCp pcm
 
Cp comp
rcomp

Lcomp

1  4rLpcm
rcomp

mcomp 0:983e12:959f mpcm

Fig. 9. Variation of the battery surface temperature in z-direction for various carbon
ber loadings.

(16)

(17)

(18)

(19)

The effective thermal conductivity of carbon ber-PCM composite which includes the effects of ber mass fractions,

F. Samimi et al. / Energy 96 (2016) 355e371

Fig. 11. Simulation results for thermal conductivity enhancement factor of composites.

Fig. 12. Experimentally measured thermal conductivity enhancement factor for various PCM composites.

361

362

F. Samimi et al. / Energy 96 (2016) 355e371

temperature dependence as well as properties of the base PCM and

bers subject to Brownian motion is given by Refs. [33e39].

Kcomp



Kc 2Kpcm  2 Kpcm  Kc 4



Kpcm
Kc 2Kpcm Kpcm  Kc 4
s
 
BT
f T; 4
5  104 bk x4rpcm Cp pcm
rc dc

Table 4
A comparison between the numerical and experimental thermal conductivity
enhancement factors at various times.
Time (min)

(20)

whereB is Boltzmann constant, 1.381  1023 J/K and

bk 8:440710041:07304

(21)

 T


f T; 4 2:8217  102 4 3:917  103
Tref



 3:0669  102 4  0:00391123

(22)

where Tref is the reference temperature (298 K). Also, x is a

correction factor in Brownian motion term, because there is no
Brownian motion in solid phase. Its value is dened as the same as
for liquid fraction (q).
4. Numerical method
The numerical technique based on nite-volume method is used
for solving the governing momentum and energy equations [32].
SIMPLER algorithm is used to couple the temperature and velocity
equations and since the governing equations are nonlinear, successive over-under relaxation method is used to solve the equations
[33].
5. Results and discussion
5.1. Thermal behavior
Figs. 2 and 3 depict the simulation results for natural convection.
The results show that during the rst 60 min, the battery body
temperatures experiences a dramatic rise, up to 70  C (343 K),
which is more than the maximum allowable operating temperature
for Li-ion batteries (45e55  C) [20,27,40e42], and after that time,
the variation of temperature is very small. As expected, naturally
convection air is not an appropriate coolant for thermal management purposes.
Therefore, other thermal management system should be used to
control the battery temperature. This can be achieved without
excessive complexity by using a passive cooling system that incorporates PCMs as coolant [42]. The temperature results are displayed in Figs. 4 and 5.
It is seen from Figs. 4 and 5 that the battery surface temperature
rises up to 57  C (330 K) after 120 min which is approximately 15  C
(25%) lower than that of natural convection. In fact, the PCM would
act as a heat sink for the generated heat during the battery
discharge.
Figs. 6 and 7 represent the results of simulation for carbon berPCM composite. Here, the mass concentration of carbon bers is
0.69%, the same as experimental study [27].
It is observed that the presence of carbon bers affects the
distribution of temperature within the thermal management system. The effect of various carbon ber loadings on time variations of
battery surface temperature is shown in Fig. 8. In Fig. 8, the
maximum temperature of composite W4 is 1 K less than blank

W1
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
110
120
W2
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
110
120
W3
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
110
120
W4
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
110
120

hmodel

hexperiment

Error (deviation)

1.1
1.052632
1.209524
1.222222
1.035714
0.883333
0.859155
1.060606
1.057971
1.074627
1.089552
1.057971

0.542857143
0.80952381
0.580952381
0.942857143
0.904761905
1.076190476
0.885714286
0.885714286
1.068571429
1.068571429
1.114285714
1

0.557142857
0.24310819
0.628571619
0.279364857
0.130952095
0.192857476
0.026559286
0.174891714
0.010600429
0.006055571
0.024733714
0.057971

1.181593
1.22199
1.552194
1.48532
1.283714
1.263067
1.10117
1.223644
1.10365
1.103638
1.103959
1.203648

0.855639098
0.936507937
0.869950739
0.980408163
0.953667954
1.039183673
0.942857143
0.965714286
1.025087108
1.022857143
1.040816327
1

0.325953902
0.285482063
0.682243261
0.504911837
0.330046046
0.223883327
0.158312857
0.257929714
0.078562892
0.080780857
0.063142673
0.203648

1.001275
1.002514
1.002832
1.004388
1.002478
1.001838
1.000253
1.002422
1.00304
1.002725
1.00335
1.002729

0.982072829
0.99031477
0.982539683
0.997178131
0.993115318
1.005079365
0.992626728
0.995428571
1.003428571
1.003428571
1.005772006
1

0.019202171
0.01219923
0.020292317
0.007209869
0.009362682
0.003241365
0.007626272
0.006993429
0.000388571
0.000703571
0.002422006
0.002729

1.001116
1.00157
1.003467
1.003457
1.001554
0.99874
0.999338
1.001812
1.00243
1.00242
1.003046
1.002121

0.956462585
0.980295567
0.960714286
0.993073593
0.985714286
1.011149826
0.984415584
0.990062112
1.007453416
1.007619048
1.01242236
1

0.044653415
0.021274433
0.042752714
0.010383407
0.015839714
0.012409826
0.014922416
0.011749888
0.005023416
0.005199048
0.00937636
0.002121

which is 329.7 K. The effect of carbon ber loadings on the variations of battery surface temperature along the height is shown in
Fig. 9. Here, a temperature difference between W4 and blank of
1.1 K can be seen along the battery simulator. The maximum temperature reaches to 325.5 K in composite W4. The effect of carbon
ber loadings on radial temperature variations is shown in Fig. 10. It
is seen from this gure that the temperature difference between
the composite W4 and blank is reduced at larger radii. It should be
mentioned that blank is the sample made of pure parafn without
carbon bers.
From these gures, it can be concluded that adding carbon bers
to the PCM affect the temperature distributions within the cell and

F. Samimi et al. / Energy 96 (2016) 355e371

363

Fig. 13. Velocity distribution in air at (a) t 30 and (b) t 90 (min), in carbon ber-free PCM at (c) t 30 and (d) t 90 (min) and in carbon ber loaded PCM (W4) at (e) t 30 and
(f) t 90 (min).

364

F. Samimi et al. / Energy 96 (2016) 355e371

Fig. 14. Density of PCM at (a) t 30 and (b) t 90 (min) and of composite sample W4 at (c) t 30 and (d) t 90 (min).

the composites made of larger percentages of carbon bers can lead

to more uniform temperature distributions.

5.2. Thermal conductivity enhancement

It is evident that the effective thermal conductivity of PCM
composite is crucial in thermal management perspective. The
presence of a heat transfer promoter (e.g. nanoparticles, metal
matrix) in PCM can provide better heat transfer paths through the
cooling medium.
With known thermal conductivity for the blank PCM, a thermal
conductivity enhancement factor (h), can be dened as [27].

keff ;c  keff ;b
keff ;b

(23)

In this equation, keff,c and keff,b denote effective thermal conductivity of composite and blank, respectively.
Fig. 11 shows the simulation results for the thermal conductivity
enhancement factor of various PCM composites versus time.
According to the denition given in Eq. (23), the enhancement
factor (h) for a ber-free PCM (blank) is zero. The presence of carbon bers in the PCM improves the effective thermal conductivity
considerably, however; this parameter depends on the mass fraction of the carbon bers used. In addition, PCMs with higher carbon
ber loadings (e.g. W3 and W4) have a steadier trend and their
thermal conductivity enhancement factors remain approximately
constant. On the other hand, samples with smaller carbon ber
loadings (W1 and W2) show unsteady performance owing to small
and unsteady variation of temperature difference (not temperature) of this samples. In other words, samples containing small
amounts of carbon bers have a performance similar to the blank

F. Samimi et al. / Energy 96 (2016) 355e371

365

Fig. 15. Kinematic viscosity of PCM at (a) t 30 and (b) t 90 (min) and of composite sample W4 at (c) t 30 and (d) t 90 (min).

and that is why thermal conductivity enhancement factor of these

samples is unsteady.
5.3. Model assessment
Fig. 12 displays the experimental results [27] for thermal conductivity enhancement factor of various PCM composites versus
time. From Figs. 11 and 12 and Table 4, there exist a good agreement
between thermal conductivity enhancement factor obtained
experimentally [27] and those predicted by simulation.
The melting rate is an important factor in latent heat thermal
energy storage systems such as battery thermal management systems. At high melting rates, more liquied PCM is available in the
system for natural convection and therefore the velocity of liquid
increases.
5.4. Velocity distribution
Fig. 13(aef) represents the velocity distribution for natural
convection, PCM and carbon ber-PCM composite. As it can be
observed from Fig. 13(a, b), the velocity increases up to 10 mm/s

after 90 min for air cooling system. This change is approximately

dramatic for natural convection which affects the battery body
temperature. These changes in velocity roots from the change in the
density of air.
Fig. 13(c, d) depicts the velocity distribution in the PCM at 30
and 90 min. Under such conditions, the veriations of velocity
within the cell is very small (e.g. between zero to 0.41 mm/s after
90 min) due to parran's larger density and viscosity with
respect to air. Fig. 13(e, f) shows the velocity distribution in the
carbon ber-PCM composite with 0.69wt.% of carbon ber
loading. In this condition, the maximum velocity of carbon berPCM composite in the cell shows 15% decrease compared with
that of the pure parafn which was predictable because of the
presence of carbon bers which seriously mitigates the motion of
liquied parafns.
The maximum amount of energy stored by PCM composite can
be reduced by the presence of carbon bers due to its lower heat
capacity hence, the rate of melting increases. On the other hand, by
increasing carbon ber loading, the velocity of melted composite
decreases owing to resistance of bers against natural convection.
According to the results of simulation, the effect of bers resistant

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F. Samimi et al. / Energy 96 (2016) 355e371

particles in melted PCM composite affects its thermal performance

and therefore its density too.
Fig. 16 shows the effect of carbon ber loading on density of
carbon ber-PCM composite.
Changes in density are demonstrated for samples containing
0.32 and 0.46 wt.% carbon bers after 60 min which represent an
increase of about 1.5% by increasing the fraction of carbon ber.
Fig. 17(aed) shows the specic heat capacity distribution of PCM
and PCM composite with 0.69wt.% of carbon ber loading at times
30 and 90 min.

5.6. Phase change state

In PCMs, the changes in phase condition (here solid to liquid)
substantially affect other parameters such as velocity and temperature distributions. Therefore, in this research phase condition is
investigated for both PCM and carbon ber-PCM composite and the
results are compared to each other. Figs. 18 and 19 show the phase
transition for PCM carbon ber-loaded PCM composite with 0.69%
wt. at various time intervals.
It is seen from these gures that as time passes, heat is dissipated into the PCM (or PCM composite), parafn is melted and the
melting zone expands. It is observed that a majority of parafn
(more than 90%) is liqueed after 90 min. The solideliquid
interface which is at at the early stage of melting becomes more
and more distorted as the uid motion is intensied. The solideliquid interface is more progressed near the regions where the
heated ow is upward, while at the zones where the uid motion
is downward, the interface moves more slowly. During the
melting process, natural convection of the liquid phase is developed, which causes ascending of hot liqueed PCM and
descending of cold liquid PCM. The shapes of the interface for
different carbon ber loadings are basically the same (Figs. 18 and
19). However, the extent of melting region decreases as the mass
fraction of carbon ber increases.
The melting rate is an important factor in latent heat thermal
energy storage systems such as battery thermal management systems. At high melting rates, more liquid is available in the system
for natural convection and therefore the velocity of liquid phase
increases.
Fig. 16. Density of sample at t 60 (min), (a): W1, (b): W2.

6. Conclusions

against motion is dominant which can root from the drop in

buoyancy force caused by added bers.

5.5. Thermo-physical properties

The physical state of PCM has a key role in assessment of the
effectiveness of thermal behavior of carbon ber-PCM composites.
Figs. 14 and 15 show typical changes in density and kinematic
viscosity of PCM and carbon ber-PCM composite within the cell at
two different time intervals e.g. 30 and 90 min after cell operation.
The time intervals 30 and 90 min are selected because the changes
in density and kinematic viscosity are signicant. From Fig. 14(ced),
it is obvious that adding carbon bers to the composite increases
the composite density by 8.28% after 90 min. This is due to the
larger density of bers compared to the PCM. Adding bers to the
PCM affects its thermal performance and because density is a
function of temperature, the variation of density occurs. Motion of

Thermal performance of a Li-ion battery was simulated when

dissipating heat into a phase change material loaded with carbon
bers. The effect of carbon ber mass fraction on heat transfer was
studied. From the simulation results, the following conclusions can
be drawn: (a) the presence of carbon bers has a signicant inuence on thermos-physical properties of PCM e.g. 11% increase in
density of sample W2 compared with the blank, (b) the solideliquid
interface is more progressed near the regions where the heated
ow is upward, while at regions where the uid motion is downward, the interface moves more slowly, (c) the more melting rate,
the more liquied PCM is available in the cell for natural convection
and therefore the velocity of the liquid increases, (d) while PCMs
can control the battery temperature much better than air by natural
convection, they suffer from their low thermal conductivities.
Carbon ber-loaded PCM composites can be a good replacement to
solve this issue. (e) the presence of carbon bers in the PCM results
in signicantly improvement of effective thermal conductivity and
consequently, this makes the medium very suitable for thermal
management of battery cells in a module or stack.

F. Samimi et al. / Energy 96 (2016) 355e371

Fig. 17. Specic heat capacity of PCM at (a) t 30, (b) t 60, and of composite sample W4 at (c) t 30 and (d) t 90 (min).

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F. Samimi et al. / Energy 96 (2016) 355e371

Fig. 18. Phase transition for sample W0, (a): t 0, (b): t 30, (c): t 60 and (d): t 90 (min) (phase 1 is the solid phase.).

F. Samimi et al. / Energy 96 (2016) 355e371

Fig. 19. Phase transition for sample W4, (a): t 0, (b): t 30, (c): t 60 and (d): t 90 (min) (phase 1 is the solid phase.).

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F. Samimi et al. / Energy 96 (2016) 355e371

Nomenclature
B
Cp
D
F
G
H
L
K
P
DP
Q
r
T
t
w
z

Boltzmann constant, 1.381  1023 J/K

specic heat capacity (J/mol K)
carbon ber diameter (m)
volume force (N)
acceleration of gravity (m/s2)
heat transfer coefcient (W m2 K1)
latent heat of the PCM (J/kg)
thermal conductivity (W m1 K1)
pressure (Pa)
pressure changes (Pa)
volumetric heat source (W m3)
radial distance (mm)
temperature ( C)
time (s)
carbon ber mass fraction
axial distance (mm)

Greek letters
q
liquid fraction
m
viscosity (Pa. s)
r
density (kg/m3)
n
velocity (m/s)
4
carbon ber mass fraction
t
shear stress (Pa)
x
correction factor in Brownian motion term
b
volumetric thermal expansion coefcient (K1)
h
thermal conductivity enhancement factor

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]
[13]
[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]
[18]
[19]

[20]

[21]

[22]

Superscripts and subscripts

b
blank
batt
battery
c
carbon ber
comp
carbon ber-PCM composite
eff
effective
ref
reference state

[23]

[24]

[25]

[26]

Abbreviations
CFD
computational uid dynamic
Li-ion
lithium-ion
PCM
phase change material
PCM-EG phase change materialeexpanded graphite
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