Not sure of this but I am sure I read that Tesla cools the bottom on the battery pack and does not use ribbons on Model Y. Apparently the heat is highest at base of battery.
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Model Y - Gigafactory Texas Production
- Thread starter Ron J.
- Start date
Sorry I was referring to 4680 packModelY with 2170 cool on the side of the batteries with ribbons. I said top, but I meant from one end of the cell
quoting Humpty Dumpty:
"Whenever I use a word....it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less"
"Whenever I use a word....it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less"
Mrbrock
Active Member
Are nasa's cooling platyes also used to pull energy out of battery cells and transfer to a motor? That is what this engineer postulated. They would use a plate to attached to the top of all the batteries (since they are tabless) and it would carry the current out of the battery and since there is a large metal thing there, they could use it to cool as well. Seems wrong in so many ways.
My experience with their use of cooling plates was for the equipment racks in the ISS.
Power was, in all respects, isolated from the plates.
The racks are standardized and equipment must be adapted to use in them. Fans are frowned upon - noise and other issues. Use cooling plates!
Our digital camera recording equipment did not use the plates as electrically hot terminals, or for electrical ground.
Mrbrock
Active Member
Exactly. I don't see why this supposed expert decided that Tesla had to reinvent the proverbial wheel to get proper cooling when just doubling the cooling snakes would achieve similar performance as on the 2170 packs.
We are all more expert than Tesla.
Especially when it's our own wishful thinking.
Mrbrock
Active Member
Usually the best solution is the simplest, at least the one you try first and see if it works. Based on the mockups at Berlin, the simplest was to copy the 2170 design exactly and test that out. That didn't work so go to the next step, test, repeat.
Apologies if already answered - I know nothing of the thermodynamics of metal. I know that in a material with inherent flow, a hot area will rise to the top and cold will settle to the bottom. I think that is caused by the difference in pressure between the hot area and the cold area; high pressure rises low pressure falls. Does something similar happen in solid metal? If one were to apply heat via locally into the middle of a strip of metal with middling heat conductivity - lets say steel - will that heat dissipate evenly or will the area towards the top get hotter than the area to the bottom?
ZenRockGarden
Active Member
You're mixing several thermo/physics topics together there.
In a fluid or gas, higher temperature often means lower density, thus in general hotter gasses rise and lava-lamps circulate.
Solids such as metals do not flow, and thus heat does not "rise" in them - it spreads in all directions in accordance with thermal conductivity. A heat-plate would dissipate temperatures from higher to lower without much concern over up vs down direction.
All of this seems moot, since Tesla has long adopted fluidic thermal management since it works better for their use case. There is no sign they went to a passive plate system.
Last edited:
Mrbrock
Active Member
Yeah, if they use a plate electrode to pull energy out of the battery, it might provide minimal supplemental cooling, but not enough to balance the lack of cooling from the every other row snakes and the larger format cells. I think to make the cooling plate work (and the other uses of cooling plates being discussed in this thread are all fluidic plates with internal fluid channels to make the plates active cooling) they would need to be active and that is where the dual use for active cooling and as an electrode falls apart.
As the batteries get bigger, cooling with ribbons/snakes on the side is becoming less efficient. The part touching the snake will be ok but the other side of the batteries will have a hard time cooling down. Cooling from one end of the batteries increase the cooling capacity. There are sheets of metal from one end to the other that conduct heat way better than form the side where there isn't a continuous metal traversing the battery that way. There is the electrolyte and insulators between every sheet.
Mrbrock
Active Member
And this all adds cost and weight to the system. And like I have mentioned, you are still talking about the existing cooling design where only about 1/4-1/3 of the outside of the battery is connected to the cooling snake. Adding one between each row of batteries means 1/2-2/3 of each cell will be touching a snake, twice the cooling for a diameter that is roughly twice the diameter.
This transfer the weight to a different place. In the end, there is active cooling but it is done at a different place. Cooling plates probably cost less that snake (I definitely heard it somewhere but I don't remember where). It takes a little space on top of the batteries but you save space from the side. The part that touches the batteries has not that much importance since the difference is how heat travels inside the battery. So even if the part cooling/touching the battery is smaller when cooling the end of the battery it is better at cooling the battery than a huge chunk on the side.
I'm pretty sure the engineers at Tesla are aware of cooling plates. Even if they don't talk to engineers at SpaceX.
Once we have actual evidence of the structural battery pack cooling architecture from Tesla or any related entity, this discussion thread may have relevance.
What we have, despite the overwhelming examination by every pundit on the planet, is conjecture.
So until evidence emerges....meh.
Similar threads
