Date of Award

2024

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics

Department

Mechanical, Industrial and Systems Engineering

First Advisor

Ashutosh Giri

Abstract

As technology improves, there is a need for better and more efficient energy storage and lithium-ion batteries have emerged as the primary energy storage device. They have positive electrochemical properties, are easily accessible, and rechargeable. However, lithium-ion batteries have been known to fail, leading to research into the failure mechanisms. As some of these failure mechanisms, such as thermal runaway, depend on thermal interactions, this paper aims to investigates thermal multibody effects of spherical inclusions in a porous matrix to gain insight into thermal effects of a realistic lithium-ion battery microstructure. Analytical solutions to this problem, such as Maxwell’s thermal conductivity relation, Rayleigh’s thermal conductivity relation, and Bruggeman’s effective thermal conductivity that use effective medium theory in order to calculate the effective thermal conductivity of the system. It is hypothesized that changing the matrix thermal conductivity, the distance between spheres, and the size of the spheres will result in thermal interaction between the spheres, causing multi-body effects, and affect the effective thermal conductivity of the system, which the analytical methods do not account for.

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