Abstract
The investigation of design parameters is very helpful for optimizing the capacity of an electrochemical cell, which can be done by both experimental and numerical methods. In this study, a lead-acid battery has been simulated numerically using the CFD commercial software package FLUENT. The governing equations, including conservation of charge in solid and liquid phases and conservation of species, are solved by developing several user defined functions (UDF). The effect of some basic parameters such as electrode porosity, discharge current density, and width of the electrodes and separator on the cell voltage behavior of a lead-acid battery is investigated. It has been shown that increasing the width and porosity of separator has both positive and negative effects on the performance parameters of battery. Furthermore, a thicker PbO2 electrode has a more pronounced effect than a thicker Pb one.
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Vahid Esfahanian received his BSc from the University of Illinois at Chicago, IL, USA in 1982 and his MSc and Ph.D. from the Ohio State University, OH, USA in 1985 and in 1991, respectively. He is now a Full Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering and the head of Vehicle, Fuel, and Environment Research Institute (VFERI), University of Tehran, Iran. His research interests include battery simulations and hybrid vehicles.
Amir Babak Ansari received his BSc and MSc in Mechanical Engineering from the Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Iran, in 2008 and 2011. He has been pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of Tehran since 2011 and he has been working at the Vehicle, Fuel, and Environment Research Institute (VFERI), University of Tehran, Iran since October 2011. His research interests include CFD simulation of battery and energy storage systems.
Hassan Bahramian received his BSc in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran in July 2012. He has been pursuing his MSc in Energy Engineering in the Polytechnic University of Milan, Milan, Italy since October 2012. His research interests include energy storage, renewable energy systems and low carbon technologies and internal combustion engines.
Pooyan Kheirkhah received his BSc in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran, in July 2012. He currently is an MSc student and a researcher in Thermo-Fluids group at the department of Mechanical engineering, UBC.
Goodarz Ahmadi serves as Dean of Wallace H. Coulter School of Engineering at Clarkson University. He is the director of the Turbulence and Multiphase Flow Laboratory, TMFL and is a fellow of ASME, ISME and ISCE. He was also a Senior Research Associate at National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL).
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Esfahanian, V., Ansari, A.B., Bahramian, H. et al. Design parameter study on the performance of lead-acid batteries. J Mech Sci Technol 28, 2221–2229 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-014-0123-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-014-0123-5