Honors Theses
Date of Award
Spring 5-8-2026
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
Mechanical Engineering
First Advisor
Amitav Tikadar
Second Advisor
Taiho Yeom
Third Advisor
Sasan Nouranian
Relational Format
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
Through the years, liquid cooling has been the most prominent technique used to regulate the temperature in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. This involves a circulating coolant running through a closed-loop system that passes through each of the channels within the lithium-ion battery. While effective, this design has certain limitations. Since the coolant is not making direct contact with the battery cells, its’ capabilities to cool are greatly hindered. Immersion cooling techniques have shown to be an effective cooling method for lithium-ion batteries. This method involved running a dielectric fluid flow across the body of the battery cells. With the immersion cooling method, there is a much greater surface area that makes direct contact, thus this disadvantage is eliminated. However, immersion cooling has its own limitations. As the cool dielectric fluid enters through the inlet and passes through the battery cells, the fluid heats up, limiting its cooling effectiveness on the battery cells closer to the outlet. Inspiration for this thesis came from this limitation in mind.
This thesis focuses on immersion cooling techniques that switch the direction of the flow at varying intervals. With this design, the hotter sections of the battery pack will experience the dielectric fluid in its cooler state. With the use of Computer Aided Design (CAD) software, Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) software – ANSYS Fluent, and general coding techniques to create a User Defined Function (UDF), a reliable simulation model was developed. It was determined that this new method of cooling does decrease the maximum and average temperature of the battery cells; however, to a minimal amount. For the 5.0C and 1.0C discharge rates, the temperature differences were 45.61 K and 10.71 K, respectively, compared to 47.89 K and 11.43 K under unidirectional flow. This indicates that multidirectional flow improved temperature uniformity by 2.28 K and 0.72 K, respectively. Nonetheless, any decrease in overall temperature will positively affect the system's lifespan and is worth exploring.
Recommended Citation
McGee, Lindsey T., "Thermal Management of Electric Vehicle Batteries Using Multi-Directional Immersion Cooling Techniques" (2026). Honors Theses. 3618.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/3618