CN214043790U - Fluid storage device for vehicle-mounted battery, fluid storage control system and vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

The utility model discloses a fluid storage device, fluid storage control system and vehicle for on-vehicle battery. The fluid storage device includes: a housing having a heat insulating portion and/or a heating portion and provided with at least one nozzle for communicating with a battery cooling system on a vehicle, the battery cooling system exchanging heat with an on-vehicle battery by a fluid, the on-vehicle battery including a power battery or a fuel cell; at least one cavity disposed within the housing and in communication with at least one of the nozzles for receiving at least a portion of the fluid from the battery cooling system after vehicle shut-down, the received fluid at least partially returning from the cavity to the battery cooling system upon cold vehicle start-up. The utility model discloses can effectively guarantee vehicle battery's working property, extension battery life promotes vehicle security.

Description

Fluid storage device for vehicle-mounted battery, fluid storage control system and vehicle

Technical Field

The utility model relates to a vehicle-mounted battery technical field especially relates to a fluid storage device, fluid storage control system and vehicle for vehicle-mounted battery.

Background

Currently, various types of batteries have been deployed on many vehicles as a source of vehicle kinetic energy. For example, as shown in fig. 1, two battery power systems, i.e., apower battery 20 and afuel cell 30, are generally provided in a conventional fuel cell vehicle. In the cold start condition, thepower battery 20 is first put into operation to start the vehicle to start running, and is used to heat the stack of thefuel cell 30. Thepower battery 20 generates heat to raise its temperature after operation, and thefuel cell 30 is used to charge thepower battery 20 after start-up. In order to ensure that thepower battery 20 and thefuel cell 30 operate properly, respectivebattery cooling systems 21 and 31 are also typically provided on the vehicle.

However, the present application has found that these prior vehicles still suffer from drawbacks and deficiencies. For example, in the vehicle starting phase, thepower battery 20 has a low temperature, so that the discharging capability thereof is weakened, which not only limits the vehicle power, but also consumes the energy of thepower battery 20 during the heating process (generally, several minutes) of the stack of thefuel battery 30. If thepower battery 20 has low electric quantity, it must be charged first, and since the temperature of thepower battery 20 is not raised sufficiently, the battery may be damaged irreversibly by the low-temperature charging operation, which accelerates the battery capacity degradation, and may cause serious safety hazards, which affect the use and operation safety of the vehicle.

SUMMERY OF THE UTILITY MODEL

In view of the above, the present invention provides a fluid storage device, a fluid storage control system, and a vehicle for an on-board battery, which solve or at least alleviate one or more of the above problems and other problems in the prior art.

First, according to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a fluid storage device for an on-vehicle battery, comprising:

a housing having a heat insulating portion and/or a heating portion and provided with at least one nozzle for communicating with a battery cooling system on a vehicle, the battery cooling system exchanging heat with an on-vehicle battery by a fluid, the on-vehicle battery including a power battery or a fuel cell; and

at least one cavity disposed within the housing and in communication with at least one of the nozzles for receiving at least a portion of the fluid from the battery cooling system after vehicle shut-down, the received fluid at least partially returning from the cavity to the battery cooling system upon cold vehicle start-up.

In the fluid storage device for an on-vehicle battery according to the present invention, optionally, the heat insulating portion includes a heat insulating layer coated on at least a part of an outer surface and/or an inner surface of the case, or at least a part of the case is made of a heat insulating material; and/or

The heating part includes an electric heating part disposed on an outer surface and/or an inner surface of the housing.

In a fluid storage device for an on-vehicle battery according to the present invention, optionally, the cavity has a cavity heat insulating portion and/or a cavity heating portion, the cavity heat insulating portion includes a heat insulating layer coated on at least a part of an outer surface and/or an inner surface of the cavity, or at least a part of the cavity is made of a heat insulating material, the cavity heating portion includes an electric heating member provided on the outer surface of the cavity.

In the fluid storage device for an on-vehicle battery according to the present invention, optionally, a vacuum layer is provided between the inner surface of the case and the outer surface of the cavity.

In a fluid storage device for an on-board battery according to the present invention, optionally, the fluid storage device further comprises a temperature sensor configured to detect a temperature within at least one of the cavities.

In the fluid storage device for an on-vehicle battery according to the present invention, optionally, the fluid storage device includes a first cavity and a second cavity independent from each other, the first cavity is configured to accommodate a fluid for exchanging heat with the power battery, and the second cavity is configured to accommodate a fluid for exchanging heat with the fuel battery.

Furthermore, according to a second aspect of the present invention, there is also provided a fluid storage control system for an on-vehicle battery, including:

a fluid storage device for an on-board battery as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the nozzle communicates via a line with a battery cooling system on the vehicle;

pump means disposed in said line and controlled to operate for moving at least a portion of said fluid into or out of said cavity of said fluid storage means; and

a controller coupled to the pump device for controlling operation of the pump device.

In the fluid storage control system for an on-vehicle battery according to the present invention, optionally, when the fluid storage device is provided with a temperature sensor for detecting at least one temperature in the cavity, and a heating device disposed on the outer surface and/or the inner surface of the housing and/or disposed on the outer surface of the cavity, the controller is connected to the temperature sensor and the heating device to increase the temperature in the cavity by controlling the heating device when the temperature detected by the temperature sensor is lower than a preset value.

In a fluid storage control system for an on-vehicle battery according to the present invention, optionally, the controller is configured to perform the following operations:

controlling operation of the pump arrangement to deliver at least a portion of the fluid from the battery cooling system into the cavity after vehicle shut-down; and

controlling operation of the pump arrangement to move at least a portion of the fluid out of the cavity back to the battery cooling system at a cold start of the vehicle.

In addition, according to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a vehicle provided with the fluid storage device for an on-vehicle battery as set forth in any one of the above, or the fluid storage control system for an on-vehicle battery as set forth in any one of the above.

The utility model has the advantages of compact structure, easily make, installation, maintenance and with low costs, it especially can guarantee battery power and the charge-discharge ability of vehicle power battery under low temperature environment to realize vehicle fuel cell's quick start. Adopt the utility model discloses technical scheme can effectively promote vehicle battery's working property and life, strengthens the security performance of vehicle.

Drawings

The invention will be described in further detail with reference to the drawings and examples, but it should be understood that the drawings are designed solely for purposes of illustration and are not necessarily drawn to scale, but rather are intended to conceptually illustrate the structural configurations described herein.

Fig. 1 is a schematic layout of a power cell, a fuel cell, and respective battery cooling systems in a conventional fuel cell vehicle.

Fig. 2 is a schematic layout diagram of an embodiment of a fluid storage control system for an on-board battery according to the present invention.

Detailed Description

First of all, it is necessary to explain, by way of example, the structure, composition, characteristics, advantages, etc. of the fluid storage device for an on-vehicle battery, the fluid storage control system, and the vehicle according to the present invention, however, all the descriptions should not be applied to form any limitation to the present invention. In this document, the technical term "connect/communicate" means a direct or indirect connection/communication between one component and another component, the technical terms "first" and "second" are used for descriptive purposes only and are not intended to indicate their order or relative importance, the technical terms "upper", "lower", "right", "left", "inner", "outer", derivatives thereof and the like should be taken in connection with the orientation in the drawings, and the present invention may take a variety of alternative orientations unless explicitly stated otherwise.

The general arrangement of an embodiment of a fluid storage control system for an on-board vehicle battery is illustrated in fig. 2 only in a schematic manner, and in this example, an example of a fluid storage device is shown, which is arranged in connection with a battery cooling system on a vehicle, so as to effectively improve the performance of the vehicle battery, such as a power battery, a fuel battery, etc., in terms of charge and discharge, charge capacity, start-up time, service life, etc.

Specifically, as shown in fig. 2, thefluid storage device 10 in the fluid storage control system comprises ahousing 1 and acavity 2, thehousing 1 provides an integral frame for the device and encloses thecavity 2, and thehousing 1 can be provided with functions of heat insulation and temperature preservation and even heating.

For example, a part or the whole of thehousing 1 may be made of a heat insulating material, or at least a part of the surface (e.g., the outer surface, the inner surface) of thehousing 1 may be coated with a heat insulating layer, thereby performing a heat insulating function. In addition, in some embodiments, in order to enhance the heat insulation effect, it is also considered that avacuum layer 4 is further disposed between the inner surface of thehousing 1 and the outer surface of thecavity 2.

As another example, according to different application requirements, heating devices (e.g., electric heating components, etc.) may be disposed at any suitable positions on the outer surface and/or the inner surface of thehousing 1, so as to be used for quickly and efficiently assisting in providing heat energy when needed. It should be noted that the specific type, arrangement position, number of settings, power level, etc. of such heating facilities all allow flexible selection, adjustment and setting according to actual requirements.

Thecavity 2 is arranged inside thecasing 1 and can be communicated with a battery cooling system on a vehicle through anozzle 6 arranged on thecasing 1, so that a flow path for heat exchange fluid in the battery cooling system to enter and exit thecavity 2 is formed. Based on different application occasions, can set up one or more mouth ofpipe 6 oncasing 1, to aspects such as their corresponding position of arranging, size, interface form, the utility model discloses do not do any restriction.

As an alternative, thecavity 2 may be configured to have the function of insulating heat and/or increasing temperature. That is, similar to the case of thehousing 1 discussed above, thecavity 2 may be made of or coated with a heat insulating material to achieve heat insulation and heat preservation, and a heating function may be provided by arranging a heating device on the outer surface of thecavity 2, for example, fig. 2 schematically illustrates an electric heating part 5 (in the form of a heating wire or the like) which may be directly powered by a power source on the vehicle, or may be self-powered, that is, theelectric heating part 5 may have a built-in battery. Further, as an alternative, in order to facilitate grasping and controlling the internal temperature of thechamber 2, a temperature sensor T may be provided in thefluid storage device 10, and may be mounted at any suitable position, such as inside or outside thechamber 2, for temperature detection, and such temperature detection data may be provided to thecontroller 7 described later for processing.

Referring to fig. 2, in the example given thecavity 2 is optionally configured to have twocavities 3 and 3 'independent of each other, which are arranged on the left and right sides inside thehousing 1, thecavity 3 being communicable with abattery cooling system 21 on the vehicle through aline 9 for accommodating a corresponding fluid for exchanging heat with thepower battery 20, and the other cavity 3' being communicable with abattery cooling system 31 on the vehicle through aline 9 for accommodating a corresponding fluid for exchanging heat with thefuel cell 30. In actual use, fluid serving as a heat exchange medium with the vehicle battery may be fed into or out of thechamber 2 of thefluid storage device 10 by means of apump device 8 arranged in therespective line 9, which may be achieved by thecontroller 7 controlling the operation of the above pump device.

It should be noted that, in some application cases, thecavity 2 may be provided with only one cavity, for example, only used for thepower battery 20 or thefuel cell 30, that is, a cavity may be provided for performing the cold start management described herein only for thepower battery 20, which has the advantages of ensuring the electric quantity and the charge and discharge capacity of the power battery in a low temperature environment, improving the battery life, and the like; alternatively, a cavity may be provided for cold start management as described herein for only thefuel cell 30, with the advantage of ensuring that the fuel cell can be started quickly, etc. In other applications, three, four or more cavities may be provided in thecavity 2, so as to be used specifically for different types of batteries on the vehicle. Furthermore, it should be understood that the different chambers may have the same or different capacities, structural configurations, etc. to fully satisfy different application requirements.

On the vehicle, thebattery cooling system 21 and thebattery cooling system 31 are configured for thepower battery 20 and thefuel battery 30, respectively, so as to provide corresponding heat exchange functions for the batteries to achieve the purpose of controlling the battery temperature, for example, the batteries can be kept in a desired temperature range during operation, thereby avoiding the disadvantages of battery abnormality, failure, performance damage and the like caused by excessively high operating temperature. Such battery cooling systems are generally installed in many vehicles, and generally use a liquid refrigerant such as water as a heat exchange medium to regulate the temperature of the vehicle battery, for example, to decrease, increase or maintain the temperature. It should be understood that the fluid used for heat exchange purposes in each battery cooling system herein is not limited to a liquid, but may be a mixture of gas and liquid, gas, etc., and the flow of such fluid throughout the system may be controlled by means such as pumps, valves, etc.

According to the present invention, the fluid storage device can be manufactured, manufactured and sold as a stand-alone product, and can be connected to a battery cooling system on a vehicle through a pipe, a pump device, a controller, etc. very conveniently and flexibly to form a fluid storage control system, wherein the controller can be used to control the operation of the entire system, and a specific example has been given in fig. 2.

As shown in fig. 2, thecontroller 7 may be connected to the pump means 8 in eachline 9 so that the actual operation of the pump means 8 may be controlled to regulate the flow of fluid into and out of thechambers 3 and 3' depending on the application.

For example, thecontroller 7 may be arranged to: after the vehicle is turned off, the operation of thepump device 8 is controlled so as to pump all or part of the fluid in the battery cooling system 21 (or the battery cooling system 31) that has exchanged heat with the power battery 20 (or the fuel cell 30) to the inside of the cavity 3 (or the cavity 3') of thefluid storage device 10. As previously mentioned, because thefluid storage device 10 has the function of insulating and even warming up the fluids, these fluids can be maintained at relatively high temperatures, thereby facilitating their subsequent use.

For another example, thecontroller 7 may be configured to: at the time of cold start of the vehicle, the operation of thepump device 8 is controlled so as to pump all or part of the fluid with relatively high temperature currently located in the cavity 3 (or the cavity 3') into the battery cooling system 21 (or the battery cooling system 31) for heat exchange with the power battery 20 (or the fuel battery 30), so that the current operating temperature of the batteries can be efficiently and quickly increased, which will help to ensure the battery capacity and charge-discharge capacity of thepower battery 20 in a low-temperature environment, improve the battery life, and ensure that thefuel battery 30 can be quickly started, thereby improving the operability and safety of the vehicle.

For another example, as mentioned above, when one or more temperature sensors and one or more heating devices are disposed in thefluid storage device 10, thecontroller 7 may be connected to the temperature sensors and the heating devices, so that in the case that the temperature detected by the temperature sensors is lower than a preset value (which may be set according to specific applications, such as 40 ℃, 50 ℃, 55 ℃, etc.), thecontroller 7 may control the heating devices to increase the temperature in the cavities 2 (such as certain cavity(s) therein) so that the fluid contained in the corresponding cavities can be maintained in a desired temperature range, and then may be provided to the corresponding battery cooling systems as needed to implement the heat exchange process with the corresponding vehicle batteries.

It should be understood that the above-mentionedcontroller 7 can be implemented by any feasible components, units, modules, etc. such as a single chip, and various control operations that it can implement can be performed based on instructions sent by a vehicle user, or can be actively implemented based on automatic detection results (such as detecting that the current cavity temperature obtained by the temperature sensor is lower than a preset value, vehicle flameout, vehicle cold start, etc.), which makes the application of the present invention have outstanding flexibility, practicability, and wide adaptability.

According to the present invention, there is further provided a vehicle, on which a fluid storage device or a fluid storage control system for an on-vehicle battery, such as those discussed above, can be provided, so that these features and advantages, such as those described above, can be provided thereby, which are significantly superior to those of the prior art. It should be understood that the vehicle according to the present invention may include, but is not limited to, a wide variety of types such as electric only vehicles, fuel cell vehicles, hybrid vehicles, etc., and the aspects of the present invention may be broadly applied to power cells and/or fuel cells, etc. deployed on these different types of vehicles.

The above detailed explanation is given by way of example only for the fluid storage device, the fluid storage control system and the vehicle for the on-vehicle battery according to the present invention, and these examples are provided only for illustrating the principles of the present invention and its embodiments, not for limiting the present invention, and those skilled in the art can make various modifications and improvements without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. Accordingly, all equivalent embodiments are intended to fall within the scope of the present invention and are defined by the various claims of the present invention.

Claims (10)

1. A fluid storage device (10) for an on-board battery, comprising:

a housing (1) having a heat insulating portion and/or a heating portion and provided with at least one nozzle (6) for communicating with a battery cooling system (21;31) on a vehicle, the battery cooling system (21;31) exchanging heat with an on-vehicle battery including a power battery (20) or a fuel battery (30) by a fluid; and

at least one cavity (2) arranged within the housing (1) and communicating with the at least one nozzle (6) for containing at least a portion of the fluid from the battery cooling system (21;31) after vehicle shut-off, the contained fluid at least partially returning from the cavity (2) to the battery cooling system (21;31) upon cold start of the vehicle.

2. The fluid storage device (10) for an on-vehicle battery according to claim 1, wherein:

the heat insulation part comprises a heat insulation layer coated on at least one part of the outer surface and/or the inner surface of the shell (1), or at least one part of the shell (1) is made of heat insulation materials; and/or

The heating part includes an electric heating part (5) provided on an outer surface and/or an inner surface of the housing (1).

3. The fluid storage device (10) for an on-board battery according to claim 1, wherein the cavity (2) has a cavity thermal insulation comprising a thermal insulation layer coated on at least a part of an outer surface and/or an inner surface of the cavity (2) or at least a part of the cavity (2) is made of a thermal insulation material and/or a cavity heating comprising an electric heating part (5) provided on an outer surface of the cavity (2).

4. The fluid storage device (10) for an on-vehicle battery according to claim 1, wherein a vacuum layer (4) is provided between an inner surface of the housing (1) and an outer surface of the cavity (2).

5. The fluid storage device (10) for an on-board battery as defined in claim 1, wherein the fluid storage device (10) further comprises a temperature sensor (T) arranged for detecting a temperature within at least one of the cavities (2).

6. The fluid storage device (10) for an on-board battery according to any of claims 1-5, wherein the fluid storage device (10) comprises a first cavity (3) and a second cavity (3') independent of each other, the first cavity (3) being arranged for receiving a fluid for exchanging heat with the power cell (20), the second cavity (3') being arranged for receiving a fluid for exchanging heat with the fuel cell (30).

7. A fluid storage control system for an on-board battery, comprising:

the fluid storage device (10) for an on-board battery as defined in any one of claims 1-6, wherein said nozzle (6) communicates via a line (9) with a battery cooling system (21;31) on board the vehicle;

-pump means (8) arranged in said line (9) and controlled in operation for sending at least a portion of said fluid into or out of said cavity (2) of said fluid storage means (10); and

a controller (7) connected to the pump device (8) for controlling the operation of the pump device (8).

8. The fluid storage control system for an on-vehicle battery according to claim 7, wherein when the fluid storage device (10) is provided with a temperature sensor (T) for detecting a temperature inside at least one of the cavities (2), and a heating device disposed on an outer surface and/or an inner surface of the housing (1) and/or on an outer surface of the cavity (2), the controller (7) is connected with the temperature sensor (T) and the heating device to increase the temperature inside the cavity (2) by controlling the heating device when the temperature detected by the temperature sensor (T) is lower than a preset value.

9. The fluid storage control system for an on-vehicle battery according to claim 7 or 8, wherein the controller (7) is configured to perform:

controlling the operation of the pump means (8) to send at least a portion of the fluid from the battery cooling system (21;31) into the cavity (2) after the vehicle has switched off; and

-controlling the operation of the pump means (8) at cold start of the vehicle to send at least a part of the fluid out of the cavity (2) back to the battery cooling system (21; 31).

10. A vehicle provided with the fluid storage device (10) for an on-vehicle battery according to any one of claims 1 to 6, or the fluid storage control system for an on-vehicle battery according to any one of claims 7 to 9.

Images