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THERMAL SCIENCE
International Scientific Journal
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SYNERGISTIC LIQUID COOLING DESIGN AND OPTIMIZATION FOR 18650 BATTERY MODULES IN ELECTRIC BICYCLES
ABSTRACT
Thermal accumulation during charging of lithium-ion batteries in electric bicycles seriously endangers safe operation. To address the thermal management of 18650 cylindrical battery modules, a composite liquid cooling strategy with bottom-internal synergistic cooling is proposed. Among the three channels (A, B, and C), Type C has the best heat dissipation performance, reducing the maximum battery temperature to 58.016°C under 2C discharge conditions. Optimization via 16 orthogonal tests identifies the optimal parameters: channel height 3.2 mm, spacing 13.5 mm, and fillet radius 5 mm. This parameter combination further lowers the maximum battery temperature to 57.552°C, while reducing the coolant temperature difference by 2.089°C and the channel pressure drop by 131.5 Pa. The innovative internal symmetrical cooling layout solves the inadequacy of traditional cooling, suppressing the maximum battery temperature to 39.837°C, which is 30.78% lower than the optimized bottom cooling scheme. It also reduces the maximum temperature difference inside the module to 13.126°C and improves temperature uniformity by 40%. This synergistic cooling strategy significantly enhances thermal safety, offering a practical and efficient thermal management solution for electric bicycle battery modules.
KEYWORDS
synergistic liquid cooling, serpentine channel optimization, internally mounted cooling layout, 18650 battery modules
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2025-11-17
PAPER REVISED: 2026-03-19
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2026-04-17
PUBLISHED ONLINE: 2026-05-29
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI2603343S
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© 2026 Society of Thermal Engineers of Serbia. Published by the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International licence