Numerical Investigation of a Compact Air-Cooled EV Battery Thermal Management System Using Circumferential Fins

Battery thermal management systems (BTMSs) are essential for maintaining the performance, efficiency, durability, and safety of electric-vehicle battery packs. Although fin-enhanced air-cooled BTMSs offer a simple and leakage-free cooling solution, their practical implementation is often limited by increased weight, insufficient temperature uniformity, and restricted heat-dissipation capability under high thermal loads. This study numerically investigates a compact air-cooled BTMS for two types of cylindrical lithium-ion batteries using aluminum and polypropylene (PP-β) circumferential fins in inline and staggered cell arrangements. Unlike previous fin-based air-cooling investigations, the present study combines a compact 2 × 4 battery pack with transverse and longitudinal center-to-center cell pitches of 1.2D, a direct comparison between metallic and lightweight polymer fins, and an assessment of two 18650 battery types with different capacities, thermophysical properties, and heat-generation characteristics. A three-dimensional steady-state conjugate heat-transfer model was developed in ANSYS Fluent to evaluate the effects of fin number, fin material, cell arrangement, ambient temperature, and inlet airflow velocity under discharge rates ranging from 1 C to 4 C. The results reveal that increasing the number of fins consistently reduced the maximum cell temperature but increased the pressure drop. The inline configuration generally achieved a lower maximum temperature and higher Nusselt number (Nu), whereas the staggered arrangement maintained a substantially lower pressure drop. Relative to the corresponding finless configurations, the Nu increased by 64.4–71.2% for the inline arrangement and 86.4–98.1% for the staggered arrangement. Polypropylene fins provided thermal performance close to that of aluminum fins in terms of maximum temperature while reducing the total fin mass by approximately 44.8%; however, aluminum fins maintained better temperature uniformity. These findings quantify the trade-offs among thermal performance, pressure drop, compact cell spacing, and system weight, providing design guidance for compact fin-enhanced air-cooled BTMSs.