In the Fall of 2021 I spent 3 months working as an intern in the Applied Technologies Division at Reaction Engines, Oxford. The ultimate goal of Reaction Engines is to develop the hypersonic, air-breathing rocket SABRE engine to power the SSTO spaceplane SKYLON.
During my time in Oxford I worked on applying the heat exchanger expertise from SABRE to other fields - particularly automotive. Specifically, I built electric vehicle battery system modelling tools as part of the hxLIFE Foils project. The project centered on liquid-vapour phase change ‘thermal foils’ as a thermal management strategy for pouch cells. The operating principle of these foils is identical to that of a heat pipe, but the form-factor is adapted for electric vehicle battery applications.
The tools I developed were subsequently used to inform the design of a retrofit battery module for a TRL5 demonstration test, in which the system exhibited a 50% increase in heat extraction compared to the standard design, as well as a reduction in cell-level temperature gradients to within 1 °C.
Overview of battery model in Simulink
Retrofit battery module design for demonstration test
Performance of thermal foils compared to standard design during demonstration test