In this paper, the thermal performa

In this paper, the thermal performance of thermoelectric cooler (TEC) in thermal management of a cy-lindrical battery module is investigated. The battery module consisted of 18650 test batteries in 3 ? 5array embedded in the copper foam impregnated with organic phase change material (PCM) for heattransfer enhancement. In the experimental test, the transient and steady-state thermal performanceswere examined base on the thermoelectric cooling in comparison with the natural convection and liquidcooling conditions. The characteristic PCM melting stages were identified to correlate with the maximumtemperature and temperature difference in the battery module. In comparison, the thermoelectriccooling reduced the battery temperature and prolonged the working time significantly. The optimalcurrent was experimentally obtained to be about 6.0e6.5 A based on the highest cooling power or lowestbattery temperature, which is close to the optimal range based on the steady-state theoretical analysis.Further analysis shows that the optimal current is affected markedly by the hot-side thermal resistance,but little by the cold-side thermal resistance. Increasing the number of TEC thermoelectric arms byreducing the spacing has a favorable effect in improving the coefficient of performance (COP) of the TECmodule.