Lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery pack is vital for storage of energy produced from different sources and has been extensively used for various applications such as electric vehicles (EVs), watches, cookers, etc. For an efficient real-time monitoring and fault diagnosis of battery operated systems, it is important to have a quantified information on the state-of-health (SoH) of batteries. This paper conducts comprehensive literature studies on advancement, challenges, concerns, and futuristic aspects of models and methods for SoH estimation of batteries. Based on the studies, the methods and models for SoH estimation have been summarized systematically with their advantages and disadvantages in tabular format. The prime emphasis of this review was attributed toward the development of a hybridized method which computes SoH of batteries accurately in real-time and takes self-discharge into its account. At the end, the summary of research findings and the future directions of research such as nondestructive tests (NDT) for real-time estimation of battery SoH, finding residual SoH for the recycled batteries from battery packs, integration of mechanical aspects of battery with temperature, easy assembling–dissembling of battery packs, and hybridization of battery packs with photovoltaic and super capacitor are discussed.

The application of lithium‐ion batteries especially for electric vehicles has been limited by the factors of safety, lifetime, charging time, and cost. One of the principal limitations is that the performance of Li‐ion batteries drops intensely in a cold environment. Cold environment dramatically reduces the available capacity of the batteries and increases its internal impedance at the same time. Therefore, the estimation of state‐of‐health is of great importance in battery performance evaluation and lifetime prediction. Furthermore, the heating methods need to be developed to ensure that batteries work in abnormal temperature conditions. This paper conducts a comprehensive review specifically on the poor performance of lithium‐ion cells under severe conditions. The content contains three sections. First, a comprehensive study on the aging mechanisms of lithium‐ion batteries at cold temperatures is undertaken. Second, the estimation methods of the health state of the batteries are conducted, which is vital to understand the fundamentals and quantify the performance and aging effects for lithium‐ion batteries. Third, the heating methods are classified and studied in detail to reduce the degradation mechanism and promote the performance of lithium‐ion batteries under sub‐zero conditions.

An effective battery thermal management system (BTMS) is essential to ensure that the battery pack operates within the normal temperature range, especially for multi-cell batteries. This paper studied the optimal configuration of an air-cooling (AC) system for a cylindrical battery pack. The thermal parameters of the single battery were measured experimentally. The heat dissipation performance of a single battery was analyzed and compared with the simulation results. The experimental and simulation results were in good agreement, which proves the validity of the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. Various schemes with different battery arrangements, different positions of the inlet and outlet of the cooling system and the number of inlets and outlets were compared. The results showed that an arrangement that uses a small length-width ratio is more conducive to promoting the performance of the cooling system. The inlet and outlet configuration of the cooling system, which facilitates fluid flow over most of the battery pack over shorter distances is more beneficial to battery thermal management. The configuration of a large number of inlets and outlets can facilitate more flexible adjustment of the fluid flow state and can slow down battery heating to a greater extent.

Electric vehicles have become a trend in recent years, and the lithium-ion battery pack provides them with high power and energy. The battery thermal system with air cooling was always used to prevent the high temperature of the battery pack to avoid cycle life reduction and safety issues of lithium-ion batteries. This work employed an easily applied optimization method to design a more efficient battery pack with lower temperature and more uniform temperature distribution. The proposed method consisted of four steps: the air-cooling system design, computational fluid dynamics code setups, selection of surrogate models, and optimization of the battery pack. The investigated battery pack contained eight prismatic cells, and the cells were discharged under normal driving conditions. It was shown that the optimized design performs a lower maximum temperature of 2.7 K reduction and a smaller temperature standard deviation of 0.3 K reduction than the original design. This methodology can also be implemented in industries where the battery pack contains more battery cells.