Thermal Analysis of an Effective Hybrid Thermal Management System for a Two-Wheeler Electric Vehicle Using Computational Fluid Dynamics
Received: 11 February 2026 | Revised: 23 March 2026 and 3 April 2026 | Accepted: 5 April 2026 | Online: 8 May 2026
Corresponding author: Mahmooda Mubeen
Abstract
Battery thermal management in two-wheeler electric vehicles is limited by compact battery configurations and high ambient operating conditions. This study presents a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)-based thermal analysis of a hybrid Battery Thermal Management System (BTMS). The system consists of a 1 kWh lithium-ion battery pack, comprising 112 cells arranged in a 14×8 configuration, operating at an ambient temperature of 35.7 °C under a 1 C charging rate. Four different configurations are studied: (a) including a battery pack in a conventional mild steel enclosure, (b) an aluminum enclosure with fins and battery cooling fans, (c) an aluminum enclosure with fins, battery cooling fans, and enclosure cooling fans, and (d) a hybrid configuration integrating fins, cooling fans, heat sinks, and a solid-state thermoelectric chiller. The simulations are performed in ANSYS Fluent. The results show that the baseline mild steel enclosure leads to a maximum temperature of 79.22 °C, exceeding safe operating limits. The proposed hybrid configuration achieves the best performance, reducing the maximum temperature to 39.9 °C and maintaining a temperature difference of within 5 °C. The findings demonstrate that hybrid cooling significantly improves thermal performance and ensures safe operation of compact battery systems.
Keywords:
aluminum battery enclosure, enclosure cooling, hybrid thermal management, two-wheeler battery cooling, ANSYS FluentDownloads
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