Thermal management systems for battery cells and methods of their manufacture

Abstract

Thermal management systems for battery cells and methods for their additive manufacture are provided. The thermal management systems include at least one heat pipe that physically contacts the battery cell and conforms to its geometry. Each battery cell is deposited within a separate heat pipe, and each heat pipe is disposed on a base plate, which itself connects to a heat sink. In many embodiments, the heat pipe is a two-phase heat exchanger having three major components: liquid channels, wick elements, and vapor channels. In such embodiments, the wick component comprises a porous body configured to be disposed between the liquid channels and vapor channels. The wick component may be made using a stochastic additive manufacturing process such that the wick component may take any configuration and/or such that the wick component may be directly integrated into the body of the heat pipe as a unitary piece thereof. In other embodiments, the heat pipe is a cavity with flow channels in which fluid can be pumped through. In some such embodiments, the fluid can occupy the heat pipe in a one-phase or two-phase state. This unitary heat pipe is part of a monolithic thermal management system.