Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Other

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Shogo Yoneda

Shuhei Marukawa

Ko Watanabe

Toyohiko Eto

Takenori Tsuchiya

Toyohiko Etoh

Nobuaki Kiya

Keiji Shukuya

Tetsuo Watanabe

Yosuke Maruta

Ryuichi Oomuta

The invention relates to a battery cooling structure for cooling a battery mounted in a vehicle. This battery cooling structure includes a battery pack () within which the battery is housed in an internal space; an air supplying device () that is configured to send cooling air to the battery pack (); and an air exhausting device () is configured to discharge exhaust air from the battery pack (). The battery pack () is arranged under a rear seat () of the vehicle. An exhaust vent () of the air exhausting device) is provided on a floor surface in a rearward space behind the rear seat () in the vehicle, and discharges the exhaust air from the battery pack () upward into the rearward space from the exhaust vent () provided in the floor surface.

Battery cooling structure

A component box has a shape of a substantially flat plate, and is stacked along a direction UPR toward the ceiling of a vehicle with its center placed at a central portion of a casing for a battery pack. Cooling wind which has been used for air-conditioning inside the vehicle and supplied from a cooling fan to the battery pack is supplied to a coolant introducing space located on an upper side of a module, passes through a gap between adjacent battery groups to flow down to a lower side of the battery groups, and then is emitted from a coolant lead-out space located at a lower side of the module out of the battery pack. Since the component box is in contact with a cooling wind passage with the casing therebetween, the component box in contact with the cooling wind via the casing is cooled down simultaneously with the cooling of the module. Since the component box is placed with its center positioned at the central portion of the battery pack, variations in temperature among batteries can be suppressed.

Power supply unit having uniform battery characteristic

A battery pack comprises a plurality of rectangular shaped batteries, wherein each of the plurality of rectangular shaped batteries is formed into a thin rectangular-parallelepiped shape, and wherein the plurality of rectangular shaped batteries are stacked side-by-side in a thickness direction, and a pair of pressurizing plates, wherein one of the pressurizing plates is located at each end of the stacked rectangular shaped batteries oriented in the thickness direction, wherein the pressurizing plates are elastically pushed against each other to pressurize the plurality rectangular shaped batteries.

Battery pack with pressurized terminal plates

The battery pack is constituted by arranging a plurality of prismatic battery modules adjacently in a condition with coolant passages formed between battery modules and with their side faces of large area being arranged in superimposed manner, and are integrated by tying end plates, arranged at both ends in the direction of arrangement of battery modules tightly together by restraining straps. A plurality of restraining straps are arranged at suitable intervals on the long side face of a battery pack and the restraining straps are constituted of at least one strip of rectangular cross-sectional shape or by round rods or pipe members of circular cross-sectional shape whose dimension in the direction perpendicular to the long side face of battery pack is larger than the dimension in the parallel direction.

Restraining bands for battery pack

Growing community of inventors

Toyota, Japan

Shogo Yoneda