ADAPTIVE THERMAL MANAGEMENT OF AN ELECTRIC ENERGY STORAGE METHOD AND SYSTEM APPARATUS

• US 20140091772A1
• Filed: 09/24/2013
• Published: 04/03/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/24/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Robert Del Core
• Original Assignee: Robert Del Core
• Inventors: Del Core, Robert
• Granted Patent: US 9,827,871 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 320/136
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2240/545 Temperature
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2240/547 Voltage
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2240/549 Current
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2240/662 Temperature
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 58/26 by cooling
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 58/27 by heating
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 10/70 Energy storage systems for electromobility, e.g. batteries
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 10/72 Electric energy management in electromobility
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/16 Information or communication technologies improving the operation of electric vehicles

Abstract

A system, method, and computer-readable storage medium to dynamically manage heat in an electric energy storage system, such as a battery pack or ultra-capacitor pack system in an electric vehicle.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

an energy storage system with an energy storage module connectable to a load,

a thermal management system for regulation of operating temperature within limits prescribed by a battery manufacturer, the thermal management system is configured to an input signal measuring a parameter indicative of current drawn from a battery, to receive an input signal measuring a process parameter of cell temperature useful in the operation of the thermal management system, to receive an input signal measuring a process parameter of ambient temperature for operation of the thermal management system, to receive an input signal from a control device that requests current be drawn from the battery at a specific time, at a specified current, and to output the allowable current to be drawn to a vehicle controller.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the input and output signals are discrete.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the apparatus is connectible to an existing communication control network without modification of other devices on that control network.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

a computation device to compute an averaged current from the energy storage system; and

a storage device to store a computed value to be used in calculating a temperature setpoint.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the computation device is further configured to compute a partial differential transient heat equation for the generation of control signal.

6. The apparatus of claim 5, further comprising:

an actuator in the form of a dry contact, PWM signal generator, or relay center, that interfaces to the vehicle HVAC system and commands the vehicle HVAC system.

7. The apparatus of claim 5, where the temperature setpoint is determined by the control expression,

t_—

set_point=t_setpoint_max−

M*((I_AVG*α

+(1−

α

)*I_—

CDR)²*R_Internal/(A*(I_AVG*α

+(1−

α

)*I_—

CDR)^B*Acell))

where,

t_setpoint_max=is the maximum setpoint of the system HVAC in accordance with an embodiment;

M is a parameter determine a mapping function that maps allowable temperature rise to maximum and minimum;

I_avg is the average current of the battery duty cycle;

Alpha is a weight parameter;

R_internal is battery internal resistance;

A is a cross sectional area of a battery cell; and

,

B is a width of the battery cell.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein M is determined by a mapping function that maps allowable temperature rise to maximum and minimum set points in an inverse manner by a linear function.

9. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein M is determined by a mapping function that maps allowable temperature rise to maximum and minimum set points in an inverse manner by a higher order polynomial function.

10. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein Iavg is computed using a time average value of actual current the electrical energy storage system is delivering over a tunable preset time interval.

11. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein a function in the form of Kα

+(1−

α

)K is used to weight the average current and a requested current to compute a weighted average current with weight α

, such that α

is a number between 0 and 1.

12. The apparatus of claim 11 where α

a function of the energy storage state of charge or α

=1−

SOC.

13. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein temperature rise for generating time dependent boundary conditions for a 1 dimensional numerical model of the battery and cell and surrounding structure is given by a temperature rise relation I²R/AI^BAcell, where I(t) @ t=t+dt is found by interpolation between the current request points I(t) @ t=t and I(t) @ t=t+dt

14. The apparatus of claim 13, a one dimensional time dependent partial differential heat equation is numerically solved to obtain a virtual average cell temperature using a one dimensional model of the cell, thus reducing the number of required sensors in the battery array

15. The apparatus of claim 14, a partial differential equation solution is compared with T_Actual to determine cells are within temperature limits, and issue a current rate to some pre-set value determine by the invention

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein tcell and tpde are compared to determine SOH as time progresses, issuing a diagnostic message if the difference grows beyond bound.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the energy storage system and thermal management system are included in a vehicle.

18. The apparatus of claim 17 wherein the adaptive thermal management control unit is included in the overall system controller of an electric vehicle.

19. The apparatus of claim 17 wherein the adaptive thermal management control unit is a standalone device but included in the overall vehicle

20. The apparatus of claim 17 where the controller includes a high performance numerical computation unit.