Chinese battery thermal-management supplier XD Thermal has developed an integrated dual-sided liquid-cooling architecture for a European electric bus platform.
The unnamed customer’s 35.3 kWh battery system combines liquid-cooled enclosures with stamped upper cooling plates. This allows heat to be removed from both sides of the battery modules.
XD Thermal said integrating the cooling system into the battery enclosure reduced the number of cooling-related components by about 25% and eliminated several assembly operations. The company said the resulting heat distribution should also help to extend battery service life.
The first prototype was delivered in approximately six weeks, with the design reaching what XD Thermal described as production readiness within two months.
Validating the seals presented a challenge because the design incorporates multiple interfaces, joints and sealing paths. XD Thermal developed dedicated fixtures and used staged air-leak and helium-leak testing to assess the complete system and identify low-rate leakage.
The enclosure also incorporates several surface treatments. Different areas receive insulating or thermal-barrier materials, requiring tailored masking and hanging methods to maintain the boundaries between coatings during production.
Xu, technical director at XD Thermal, said: “Once cooling becomes part of the enclosure, the design boundary changes. The challenge is no longer to optimise a cooling plate alone, but to ensure that the complete structure delivers stable thermal performance while remaining practical to manufacture.”
The company said the architecture could be adapted for different vehicle platforms, pack dimensions and battery capacities without fundamentally redesigning the thermal management concept.
XD Thermal has not identified the bus manufacturer, disclosed the battery chemistry or provided comparative thermal-performance data.
Photo: Insulation voltage withstand test Credit: XD Thermal
