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In these years, the advantages of using phase change material (PCM) in the thermal management of electric power battery has been wide spread. Because of the thermal conductivity of most phase change material (eg.wax) is low, many researchers choose to add high conductivity materials (such as black lead). However, the solid-liquid change material has large mass, poor flow-ability and corrosively. Therefore, it still stays on experiential stage. In this paper, the Thermal characteristics of power battery firstly be invested and the requirements of thermal management system also be discussed. Then a new PCM thermal management has been designed which uses pure water as liquid phase change material, adopts PCM with a reflux device for thermal management.

Vehicle hydraulic retarders are applied in heavy-duty trucks and buses as an auxiliary braking device. In traditional cooling systems of hydraulic retarders, the working fluid is introduced into the heat exchanger to transfer heat to the cooling liquid in circulation, whose heat is then dissipated by the engine cooling system. This prevents the waste heat of the working fluid from being used effectively. In hydraulic retarder cooling system based on the Organic Rankine Cycle, the organic working fluid first transfers heat with the hydraulic retarder working fluid in Rankine cycle, and then outputs power through expansion machine. It can both reduce heat load of the engine cooling system, and enhance thermal stability of the hydraulic retarder while recovering and utilizing braking energy. First of all, according to the target vehicle model, hydraulic retarder cooling system model based on Rankine cycle is established.

With the improvement of occupants’ awareness on the driving safety, hydraulic retarder applications increase quickly. The traditional hydraulic retarder, on the one hand, exhausts the waste heat of transmission oil by the engine cooling system; on the other hand, the engine power should be consumed to drive the water pump and the engine cooling fan for maintaining the normal operation of the auxiliary braking system. In this study, the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) instead of the traditional hydraulic retarder water-cooling system is applied to achieve the effective temperature control of the hydraulic retarder, while the waste heat of transmission oil could be recovered for saving vehicle energy consumption. The ORC fluid selection needs comprehensive consideration for the net power of the ORC and the optimal temperature range of the retarder transmission oil at both the inlet and outlet end, which is the key issue to ensure the stability and efficiency of the ORC system performance.