Battery Thermal Management Systems in Aviation: Concept Review and Down Selection

Abstract

The usage of batteries provides an opportunity to enable emission reduction in aviation. During operation, batteries generate heat that needs to be actively managed and imposes a challenge for the thermal management system (TMS) design due to limited battery operating temperature ranges. The presented work summarises the requirements for the TMS design from both battery and propulsion system perspective. These requirements are then used to derive a workflow to support a TMS definition and concept down selection for different (hybrid-)electric aircraft applications. A modelling strategy to account for the TMS within the powertrain and aircraft mission sizing is illustrated to capture the TMS related mass and power penalties.