Forklift Rapid Charging Thermal Optimization
Customer profile: Green Cubes is an US company designing electric forklifts. We have used Q-Bat to help Green Cubes Technology optimize their forklift battery packs for optimal heat removal during rapid charging. The customer was seeking a solution to develop technology for fast charging in short bursts (so-called opportunity charging). We helped Green Cubes to find a cooling system that would allow batteries to be charged at 7.5C for 8 minutes. We simulated heat exchange in the battery assembly with several cooling system configurations.
Project challenge and Customer’s expectations:
- The client needed a cooling system design that would dissipate large amounts of heat without using a huge coolant pump. He also wanted several possible solutions with varying degrees of complexity.
Solution we provided:
We developed a simple, dimensionless mathematical model that, despite some inaccuracy in the results, allowed us to find the optimum dimensions of the cooling elements at different coolant mass discharges.
The selected cooling system configurations were then used to create 3D heat transfer simulations, which we performed in Q-Bat. These allowed us to get a more accurate idea of the temperature distribution of the battery.
It turned out that with such high charging currents, it was impossible for the fluid to dissipate heat on the fly and the use of large and heavy cooling plates as heat sinks was needed.
Customer’s benefits:
- Simulation of the exact temperature distribution of the battery.
- Providing the customer with simulations of several cooling system configurations.
- Optimal sizing of cooling elements at different coolant mass flow rates.
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