BE ST PRACTIC E S

SIMULATION:
Leading the
Pack

By Xiao Hu Lithium-ion battery packs are the heart of

Principal Application Engineer
the coming electrical vehicle (EV) revolution.
Ansys, Ann Arbor, U.S.A.
IEA, the International Energy Agency, thinks
the number of electric passenger vehicles
could exceed 130 million or even 250 million
vehicles by 2030, depending on policy changes and industry pledge
fulfillment.1 In its 2018 prediction, OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries, more conservatively estimated 300 million electric
vehicles in the global car fleet by 2040.2 In its Electric Vehicle Outlook 2019,
Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) was more bullish on EVs, predicting
500 million passenger EVs on the road by 2040, which would be about
32% of the world’s passenger vehicles.3 They may disagree on timing and
numbers, but analysts and automotive industry investments all point to a
bright future for EVs.

66 AnsysAdvantage
Ansys Advantage Issue 22 || 2020
Issue 2020
 B
efore EV sales can compete with those of cars with internal combustion engines, they
must approach price parity. And, because EV battery packs make up the lion’s share of
EV costs, the pressure is on engineering teams to quickly and cost-effectively optimize
battery performance. To do that requires simulation. One of the key applications in
simulation performed by battery designers is the electro-thermal coupled (ETC) analysis. There
are two types of ETC analyses.
The first couples a thermal
computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
model with a battery sub-model for
electrical performance. A popular
choice of such a sub-model is a battery
equivalent circuit model (ECM). This type
of ETC is commonly referred to as battery
thermal management analysis.
Battery thermal management analysis
benefits from an ETC that involves a high-
resolution CFD simulation. Ansys Fluent
software can simulate the temperature
distribution in a battery pack, as well as
the entire battery cooling system with
a battery ECM for heat generation, to allow for By using Ansys Fluent and Ansys Twin Builder,
battery thermal management optimization. an entire battery pack can be simulated in far
The second type of ETC is tailored for system less time than with other popular techniques.
applications, in which the battery ECM is also
used for the electrical side, but is coupled with a fast thermal model. Many system applications
do not require a high-fidelity temperature solution in a battery pack. In fact, for system-level
applications, that high fidelity provides extraneous detail and demands more computational
resources. For such a system application, a different approach is needed. A popular choice for
thermal analysis in system applications is a thermal network model.
However, it can be difficult to create an accurate thermal network model because it requires a
significant level of expertise. Plus, it is still relatively time-consuming and prone to errors. Another
methodology, reduced-order modeling (ROM), can be used to replace the thermal network
approach to develop a battery pack simulation for system applications. This ROM approach can
speed up ETC by an order of magnitude compared to using the thermal network approach, and
it takes less than half a man-hour to create the thermal ROM. The ROM methodology is also more
accurate than the thermal network model.

MULTIPLE USE CASES FOR SYSTEM-LEVEL BATTERY PACK COUPLING

A battery ETC for system applications demands speed and accuracy. In some cases, it demands
real-time or close to real-time performance with compromised accuracy. In other cases, it
requires improved accuracy at the cost of speed.
For example, a system integration engineer may
need a battery ETC model to drive the entire electric
powertrain system or a subset of it at close to real-time
performance. The battery analysis, being a component
in the entire system, cannot be allowed to consume
more than its share of computational resources. For
the entire system model to function at an acceptable
speed, the battery module or even entire battery pack
may be lumped into one single battery ETC. In such a
scaled battery model, there is only one set of electrical
parameters for the entire pack; for instance, there is
one state-of-charge (SoC) value to represent the entire
pack and perhaps one temperature for each battery
A thermal simulation of a battery module
module or even for the pack.
shows temperature variation in a module.
For battery management system (BMS) designers,
The impact of such variation on battery
on the other hand, a detailed battery ETC model is
electrical performance is simulated
required to test the battery BMS algorithm (see “Using
using ROM coupled with ECM. The ROM is
calibrated using the CFD results shown. Ansys MBSE Solutions for Battery Management

© 2020 ANSYS, Inc. Ansys Advantage 7

 BE ST PRACTIC E S

Cell ECM Module ECM Pack ECM

(TB) (TB) (TB)

E1 E2 E5

EC

ECM
M
EC
M

f ro

f rom
f ro

m
Pack ETC m
FL

FL
E3 E4 E6 (TB, FL) E7
Electrical Control

FL o
or

or
Module ETCC FM
Engineer

r
Simulink U

FM
(TB, FL) Simulink

FMU
U
Module
Pack ETC
Thermal Cell ETC Module ETC LTI ROM T8 T12 T11 T10 (FL)
Engineer
(FL) T3 (FL) T6 (FL) T7
Module Cold Module
SVD ROM Plate CHT SVD ROM
(FL) (FL) (FL, TB)
T1 T4 T9

Cell CHT Module CHT Pack CHT

(FL) (FL) (FL)
Cell CHT+ Module CHT+
Thermal Abuse Thermal Abuse
T2 (FL) T5 (FL)

CHT: Conjugate Heat Transfer; ECM: Equivalent Circuit Model; ETC: Electro-Thermal Coupling; FL: Ansys Fluent; FMU: Functional Mock-up Unit;
LTI: Linear Time-Invariant; ROM: Reduced Order Model; SVD: Singular Value Decomposition; TB: Ansys Twin Builder

A chart showing the pathway toward faster electro-thermal coupling via a methodology that
expands reduced order modeling techniques to the battery pack level.

System Applications” on page 10). The battery ETC model would need to accurately capture the
temperature for each cell to be able to make sure that cell-to-cell temperature variation is lower
than the acceptable level. Such a battery ETC model would also need to monitor electrical
performance, for instance the SoC, for each cell. As a result, it would demand a completely
discretized pack ETC model.
The above examples represent two extreme cases, but there are many applications that
demand a level of discretization somewhere in the middle. A methodology for battery pack–
level ETC should offer the flexibility to satisfy the requirements of both extreme cases and
everything in between. Ansys has developed a methodology to accommodate all of them.

USING REDUCED-ORDER MODELING FOR BATTERY COUPLING

To demonstrate the methodology, Ansys engineers start with a proposed battery pack ETC
model that consists of an electrical part and a thermal part. The electrical part uses the battery
ECM model with different levels of discretization. The thermal part uses ROMs calibrated from
high-fidelity CFD results. The ROMs also provide a different level of discretization. The cooling
effect of each module is modeled using heat transfer coefficients (HTCs).
The battery ECM is an industry standard for simulating battery electrical performance.
A battery ECM can be used at the battery cell, module and pack levels to predict battery
range, peak power and drive-cycle performance. Ansys Twin Builder provides a wizard to help
customers build a battery ECM. The ECM from Ansys Twin Builder could be state of charge,
temperature, discharge/charge and rate dependent. The wizard builds the cell-level ECM
typically from hybrid pulse power characterization (HPPC) data. It could also build a cell-level
ECM from customer parameters. The ECM from Twin Builder accommodates both 4P (one
resistor–capacitor) and 6P (two RCs) types of ECM models. The wizard can also build a module-
level ECM from a cell-level ECM given a module configuration of mSnP. (A battery module

MILLIONS OF ELECTRIC CAR DEPLOYMENTS

5.12M

3.14
2.01
1.26
0.4 0.71

2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

The global stock of electric passenger cars passed 5 million in 2018, according to IEA,
an organization focused on sustainability.

8 Ansys Advantage Issue 2 | 2020

 consists of n parallel branches with each branch having m cells.) At the module level, the wizard
builds a discretized version for BMS applications in which detailed information for each cell
is necessary, or a scaled version for system integration applications in which fast simulation
is important. An engineer can
complete a pack ECM in just a few
minutes using Twin Builder.
Using ROMs for conjugate heat
transfer (CHT) is a tried-and-true
technique that has been used in
electronics for many years. The
new methodology adopts this
technique for the thermal part of
a battery pack ETC. ROMs require
training data to determine the
thermal impedance of the battery
system. In this methodology, A template has been created inside Ansys Fluent to facilitate
Ansys engineers use Fluent to meshing a module. Only one module mesh is required, and
make a high-fidelity CHT model of different modules use different HTC boundaries.
the battery module to create the
required training data. One CFD model for a module of 14S1P configuration (14 cells in series
with 1 parallel branch) can be created using Fluent in half a day. The training data generation
takes a couple of CPU hours. From the training data, a thermal ROM can be generated in a
couple of minutes. Once the ROM is created, the CFD model is no longer needed for simulation.
The ROM can be used to simulate temperature given any transient heat source.
Such a method can then be extended to the pack level. Because each module has the same
geometry but sits at a different location on the cold plate, there is no need to create a pack CFD
model. Instead, the thermal ROM is created for one module only. Different modules will have
different heat transfer coefficient boundaries depending on where they sit on the cold plate. In
this example, 12 thermal ROMs are each connected with their different HTC boundaries present
in 12 different modules sitting at different locations on the cold plate.
Because the HTC varies based on where each module sits on the battery cold plate, the
cold plate must be meshed to account for the variability. A cold plate CHT analysis is a typical
application of CFD. An unstructured CFD code like Fluent is well-suited to this analysis. After the
cold plate CHT analysis, post-processing can be done to calculate the HTC for each module.
Once the ECM for the pack and the thermal ROMs for each module are created, it is simply
a matter of connecting them together to create a two-way coupled ETC for the pack. A fully
discretized version of a pack ETC has a run-time performance close to real time. A scaled version
could run much faster depending on the amount of scaling adopted in the pack ETC model.

A heat transfer coefficient map of a cold plate (left) shows significant differences across the plate that
must be accounted for in order to develop an electro-thermal coupling model for the entire pack.

© 2020 ANSYS, Inc. Ansys Advantage 9

 BE ST PRACTIC E S

USING ANSYS MBSE SOLUTIONS

FOR BATTERY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM APPLICATIONS

B ehind every complex system, there is a need for an intelligent software controller that
manages the performance and the safety of the system. This is the role of a battery
management system (BMS).

A BMS is a sophisticated, software-driven control center of an electric vehicle. It is

responsible for, among other functions, monitoring the cell voltage and temperature
and preserving healthy operating conditions; monitoring the state of the system
connectivity; measuring current; calculating state of charge (SoC) and state of health
(SoH); balancing electrical input and output among cells; and establishing connections
between the battery and the powertrain or the charging system. In general, a BMS
independently ensures the smooth, safe operation of a battery-powered vehicle at
optimal performance conditions. It distributes resources where they can be put to best
use and notifies the operator of potential problems well in advance. In a worst-case
scenario, the BMS could physically disconnect batteries in the system to prevent damage
or catastrophic failure that could endanger passengers in the vehicle.

As depicted below, Ansys medini analyze ensures the safety of the BMS design, Ansys
SCADE Suite produces and verifies the embedded control software, and Ansys Twin
Builder enables engineers to test and validate a complete electrical system in an EV for
efficiency and reliability. This combination of design and simulation tools is essential for
the development of an ISO 26262–certified BMS component.

In this development framework, Ansys Twin Builder performs integrated, system-level

simulation in a real-time closed loop of the detailed battery ETC model with the BMS
software component. This system-level simulation allows battery and BMS designers to
understand how the different components work together, and also supports the tuning
of different system parameters for an optimal system response.

10 Ansys Advantage Issue 2 | 2020

 Once the pack-level ETC is simulated and the results are obtained, a detailed transient
thermal analysis could be performed on any module using CFD, allowing it to be studied more
closely. Plus, now that the CFD has the correct heat source from the system-level simulation, its
results are more accurate. Better yet, a singular-value decomposition (SVD) ROM could be used
to calculate the temperature using the correct heat source from the system-level model. The
SVD ROM results differ from the CFD results by just a few percent, and it takes only minutes to
simulate a 4-million polygon model.

BENEFITS OF USING ANSYS BATTERY SIMULATION TECHNOLOGY

Ansys battery electro-thermal coupled models can also be seamlessly integrated into an
existing system-level workflow. The ECM, the thermal ROM and the entire pack ETC model
could be interconnected to third-party solutions via a functional mockup unit (FMU). This
provides the flexibility to use Ansys battery models in other system tools. Let us take a look
at two real-world examples. In the first example, Volkswagen Motorsport used Ansys battery
ETC techniques on a pack for system integration. In the second example, A123, a leading cell
manufacturer, used the Ansys battery model for BMS design.
When VW Motorsport engineers were challenged to build an electric vehicle in less than a year
to compete in the 2018 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, they needed an efficient method to
design and validate the battery model. They used Ansys Fluent CFD results to identify the module
thermal ROM. A temperature-sensitized battery-module ECM and the module thermal ROM
were then two-way coupled in Ansys Twin Builder to form the complete battery module model.
The modules were then connected to form a complete battery pack model for system-level
simulation in a third-party solution. Their temperature results were excellent, all within 3 degrees,
and the SoC results were within 10% of error compared with test results. The simulation method
not only helped VW engineers meet their tight deadline, the resulting ID. R Pikes Peak race car
crossed the finish line in record time. Learn more here: ansys.com/pikespeak.
A123 Systems LLC used the ROM methodology to build a discretized thermal ROM for a
liquid-cooled, 48V battery pack. The accuracy and efficiency of the ROM were first validated by
comparison with 3D simulation. The error from the ROM has shown to be negligible compared
with the 3D CFD simulation. The thermal network was then compared with the ROM approach,
and the errors from the thermal network were much higher compared with the ROM. Comparing
the two methods’ workflows, ROM is a more systematic approach and less error prone. The
discretized thermal ROM is then exported into a third-party system tool to develop a current
derate algorithm for the BMS. The methodology demonstrated high capability and potential for
dynamic identification of components overheating to protect the battery pack.
As automakers increasingly turn to electric powertrains, engineers will increasingly turn
to time-saving techniques to optimize battery packs. The
battery electro-thermal coupled model using ROM that
BMS for Safer Electric
Ansys has developed with its customers makes system- Vehicles Webinar
level battery pack applications more efficient, accurate ansys.com/BMS
and pervasive.

SOURCES
1. IEA (2019), Global EV Outlook 2019, IEA, Paris, https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2019
2. 2019 World Oil Outlook 2040, OPEC, https://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/publications/340.htm
3. BNEF (2019), 2019 Electric Vehicle Outlook, https://about.bnef.com/electric-vehicle-outlook

© 2020 ANSYS, Inc. Ansys Advantage 11