JP5737126B2 - vehicle - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a vehicle equipped with a battery provided with a cooling path through which cooling air for cooling a power generation element is conducted.

  A hybrid vehicle, an electric vehicle, and the like using a battery such as a lithium ion battery or a nickel metal hydride battery as a power source are known. This type of battery may be mounted inside a luggage room formed at the rear of the vehicle in the rear seat. However, the space for loading the load is eroded by the battery mounted in the luggage room.

  Patent Document 1 discloses a vehicle mounting structure for a battery pack that is loaded in a luggage room of a vehicle and includes a spare tire including a wheel and a battery pack disposed inside the wheel. The battery pack includes a plurality of battery cells and a fan that supplies cooling air to the plurality of battery cells. The plurality of battery cells are arranged on the outer periphery of the fan at intervals in the circumferential direction. Flows radially between adjacent battery cells. According to the configuration of Patent Document 1, since the battery pack is disposed in a space formed inside the wheel, narrowing of the luggage room is suppressed.

JP 2009-184577 A

  However, in the configuration of Patent Document 1, the wheel surrounding the battery cell serves as a shield, and the pressure loss of the cooling air increases.

  Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a vehicle that suppresses the narrowing of the luggage room of the vehicle and suppresses an increase in pressure loss of cooling air.

In order to solve the above problems, a vehicle according to the present invention includes (1) a deck board that forms a floor surface of a luggage room of the vehicle, a bottom portion and a wall surface portion that rises from the bottom portion, and an upper end of the wall surface portion. A receiving recess that is formed below the deck board so that a gap is formed between the deck board and that has a cooling path for conducting cooling air that cools the power generation element ; A duct that connects to the battery through the gap from the outside and sends cooling air to the battery, and an interval between the discharge port of the cooling path and the region facing the discharge port in the wall surface portion. The pressure loss of the cooling air discharged from the discharge port is set to be below an allowable level.

  (2) In the configuration of (1), the battery may be an assembled battery in which a plurality of cells as the power generation element are arranged.

(3) In the configuration of (2) above, the cells are arranged in the vehicle width direction, and the cooling path is connected to the upper end surface side of the assembled battery and is connected to the duct. The cooling air supplied from the chamber and the intake chamber flows in, and is connected to the inter-battery cooling path formed between the unit cells adjacent in the vehicle width direction, and the lower end surface side of the assembled battery, and the battery An exhaust chamber that exhausts the cooling air discharged from the intercooling path into the housing recess outside the battery, and the exhaust port is an exhaust port of the exhaust chamber.

  (4) In the configurations of (1) to (3) above, the allowable level can set the deterioration rate of the pressure loss with respect to the reference pressure loss to 5%. Thereby, the fall of cooling efficiency can fully be suppressed.

  ADVANTAGE OF THE INVENTION According to this invention, the increase in the pressure loss of cooling air can be suppressed, suppressing the narrowing of the luggage room of a vehicle.

1 is a schematic view of a vehicle. It is the schematic which shows the mounting structure of a storage battery.

  A vehicle according to the present embodiment will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a vehicle 100 according to the present embodiment. FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing the structure of the mounting structure portion on which the storage battery of the vehicle 100 of this embodiment is mounted.

  In these drawings, an arrow Fr indicates a traveling direction (vehicle forward direction) of the vehicle 100, an arrow Rr indicates a direction (vehicle backward direction) opposite to the traveling direction of the vehicle 100, and an arrow Rh indicates the vehicle 100. The arrow Lh indicates the direction on the left side in the traveling direction (Fr direction) of the vehicle 100, and the arrow Up indicates the upward direction of the vehicle 100. Show. In addition, when it is not necessary to particularly distinguish the arrow Rh direction and the arrow Lh direction, these are collectively referred to as a vehicle width direction.

  With reference to FIG. 2, the battery 1 mounted in the vehicle 100 of this embodiment is demonstrated. The vehicle 100 of the present embodiment is a hybrid vehicle having a drive path for driving a motor using the power of the battery 1 and a drive path made of an internal combustion engine, or a drive path for driving a motor using the power of the battery 1 only. May be an electric vehicle. The hybrid vehicle may be a plug-in hybrid vehicle that can charge the battery 1 from a commercial power source provided outside the vehicle 100.

  The battery 1 includes an assembled battery 10, an intake chamber 4, and an exhaust chamber 6. The assembled battery 10 includes a plurality of unit cells 2 arranged in the vehicle width direction and an inter-battery cooling path 2 a formed between adjacent unit cells 2. These single cells 2 are electrically connected in series via a bus bar (not shown). The unit cell 2 may be a secondary battery such as a lithium ion battery or a nickel metal hydride battery, or a capacitor. In addition, all or some of the plurality of unit cells 2 may be electrically connected in parallel. The unit cell 2 corresponds to a power generation element.

  The intake chamber 4 is connected to the upper surface side of the assembled battery 10, that is, the inlet of the inter-battery cooling path 2a. The intake chamber 4 is connected to a blower 8 via a duct 7. Cooling air blown from the blower 8 is introduced into the inter-battery cooling path 2 a via the duct 7 and the intake chamber 4. The arrows shown in FIG. 2 indicate the direction in which the cooling air flows in the intake chamber 4, the inter-battery cooling path 2 a, and the exhaust chamber 6. The intake chamber 4, the inter-cell cooling path 2a, and the exhaust chamber 6 constitute a cooling path for the battery 1.

  The exhaust chamber 6 is connected to the lower surface side of the assembled battery 10, that is, the outlet of the inter-battery cooling path 2a. The exhaust port 6a of the exhaust chamber 6 faces the housing recess 22 in the vehicle width direction. Here, the area | region which faces the discharge port 6a in the vehicle width direction among the accommodation recessed parts 22 shall be called the opposing wall surface part 22a. In FIG. 2, the region indicated by the opposing wall surface portion 22a is indicated by a dotted-line ellipse.

  In this embodiment, the cooling path is formed in a so-called U-shape, but the cooling path may be formed in a so-called Z-shape. The Z-shaped cooling path is a cooling path designed so that the directions of cooling air flowing through the intake chamber 4 and the exhaust chamber 6 are the same. Moreover, although the discharge port 6a of this embodiment is facing the wall surface of the accommodation recessed part 22 in a vehicle width direction, you may face the wall surface of the accommodation recessed part 22 in another direction (for example, Fr direction).

  The battery 1 is supported by a support portion 26 fixed to the bottom of the housing recess 22. The support portion 26 extends in the Fr direction of the vehicle. Thereby, since the unit cell 2 is disposed at a position separated from the bottom of the housing recess 22, it is possible to prevent the condensed water and the like accumulated at the bottom of the housing recess 22 from contacting the unit cell 2.

The housing recess 22 is formed below the deck board 20 that forms the floor surface of the luggage room 30. That is, the opening formed above the accommodation recess 22 is closed by the deck board 20. The deck board 20 may be a plate material made of a steel plate or the like. The accommodation recess 22 is formed in a convex direction downward. The wall portion of the housing recess 22 forms a vehicle body. The luggage room 30 is a luggage room on which luggage is placed.
Here, the dimension of the housing recess 22 in the Up direction is set to be larger than the dimension of the battery 1 in the Up direction. Thereby, it is possible to prevent the upper portion of the battery 1, that is, the upper surface of the intake chamber 4 from coming into contact with the deck board 20.

  The trim 24 is an interior material that forms the wall surface (side surface) of the luggage room 30. The trim 24 covers an inner surface portion of the vehicle body, and various devices and wirings are accommodated in a space sandwiched between the trim 24 and the vehicle body. These various devices include a blower 8. The blower 8 may be a sirocco fan, a crossflow fan, or a propeller fan.

  Further, discharge ports 50 and 52 are formed in a part of the trim 24. The discharge ports 50 and 52 connect the storage space of the battery 1 formed by the deck board 20 and the storage recess 22 and the space sandwiched between the trim 24 and the vehicle body. Therefore, the cooling air used for cooling the battery 1 and discharged from the discharge port 6 a is exhausted from the storage space of the battery 1 through the discharge ports 50 and 52. A vent that communicates with the outside of the vehicle may be provided in the vehicle body, and the cooling air that is sandwiched between the trim 24 and the vehicle body and exhausted into the space may be exhausted outside the vehicle through the vent. Further, the discharge ports 50 and 52 may be formed in the deck board 20. In this case, the cooling air exhausted from the exhaust port 6 a is exhausted to the luggage room 30 through the exhaust port formed in the deck board 20. The cooling air exhausted to the luggage room 30 may flow into the passenger compartment through a gap (not shown) provided in the vicinity of the rear seat 40.

  Next, the positional relationship between the battery 1 and the wall surface of the housing recess 22 will be described. Since the exhaust port 6a of the exhaust chamber 6 faces the opposing wall surface portion 22a of the housing recess 22, the cooling air exhausted from the exhaust port 6a collides with the opposing wall surface portion 22a. Therefore, the pressure loss of the cooling air exhausted from the exhaust port 6a varies depending on the distance A (corresponding to the length of the double-headed arrow in FIG. 2) between the exhaust port 6a and the opposing wall surface portion 22a. When the pressure loss increases, the cooling capacity for the battery 1 decreases, so that the deterioration rate of the battery 1 increases. Therefore, in the present embodiment, the distance A is set so that the pressure loss of the cooling air discharged from the discharge port 6a of the exhaust chamber 6 is equal to or less than the allowable level.

  The distance A required to reduce the pressure loss to an allowable level or less can be obtained experimentally by flowing cooling air from the blower 8 to the battery 1. Specifically, when cooling air is supplied from the blower 8 to the battery 1, the distance A is changed and the pressure loss of the cooling air is measured. Then, from the relationship between the distance A obtained from the measurement result and the pressure loss, for example, the deterioration rate of the pressure loss with respect to the reference pressure loss (hereinafter also referred to as the reference pressure loss) is less than the allowable deterioration rate. This distance may be adopted as the distance A between the discharge port 6a and the opposing wall surface portion 22a of the housing recess 22. By disposing the battery 1 so that the distance A satisfies the above condition, the pressure loss of the cooling air exhausted from the discharge port 6a can be suppressed to an allowable level or less, and the battery 1 can be efficiently cooled.

Table 1 shows the measurement results of measuring the pressure loss when the cooling air is supplied from the blower 8 at a flow rate of 100 m ³ / h while changing the distance A. In addition, as a pressure loss, the pressure difference in the discharge port (the connection part of the blower 8 and the duct 7) of the blower 8 and the discharge port 6a of the exhaust chamber 6 was measured. Moreover, the pressure loss when the distance A is infinite was used as the reference pressure loss which is a reference for the deterioration rate of the pressure loss. The distance A being infinite means that there is no obstacle such as the wall surface of the housing recess 22 on the downstream side of the discharge port 6a in the discharge direction of the cooling air.

  From this measurement result, for example, when the allowable level of pressure loss is set to a pressure loss deterioration rate of 5%, the distance at which the deterioration rate becomes 5% or less is adopted as the distance A, and the battery 1 may be disposed. . In the case of the measurement results shown in Table 1, if the distance A is set to 15 mm, the pressure loss deterioration rate is 3.5%. Therefore, the pressure loss is below an allowable level, and the battery 1 is efficiently cooled. be able to. When the allowable level is set to 2%, the deterioration rate becomes 1.8% by setting the distance A to 20 mm, for example. Therefore, if the distance A is 20 mm, which is 2% or less of the allowable level of deterioration, the battery 1 can be further efficiently cooled.

  The relationship between the distance A and the pressure loss was obtained because it varies depending on the dimensions and shape of vehicle elements such as the intake chamber 4, the duct 7, the inter-battery cooling path 2a, and the exhaust chamber 6, and the flow rate of the blower 8. Based on the measured data, the distance A may be set individually so that the pressure loss is below the allowable level.

  According to the above embodiment, the distance A between the discharge port 6a and the opposing wall surface portion 22a of the housing recess 22 is set so that the pressure loss of the cooling air discharged from the battery 1 becomes smaller than the allowable level. Therefore, the battery 1 mounted below the luggage room 30 can be efficiently cooled.

  In the present embodiment, the discharge ports 50 and 52 are provided on both sides of the storage recess 22 as the discharge ports for discharging the cooling air from the storage space of the battery 1. Either may be sufficient.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Storage battery 2 Single cell 4 Intake chamber 6 Exhaust chamber 7 Duct 8 Blower 10 Battery assembly 20 Deck board 22 Recessed part
22a Opposite wall 24 Trim 30 Luggage room
50, 52 Discharge port 100 Vehicle

Claims (4)

A deck board that forms the floor of the luggage room of the vehicle;
A bottom portion and a wall surface portion that rises from the bottom portion, and is formed below the deck board so that a gap is formed between the upper end of the wall surface portion and the deck board, and conducts cooling air that cools the power generation element An accommodating recess for accommodating a battery having a cooling path to be
A duct that connects to the battery through the gap from the outside of the housing recess, and sends cooling air to the battery ;
The distance between the discharge port of the cooling path and the region of the wall portion facing the discharge port is set so that the pressure loss of the cooling air discharged from the discharge port is below an allowable level. Vehicle.   The vehicle according to claim 1, wherein the battery includes an assembled battery in which a plurality of single cells as the power generation elements are arranged. The unit cells are arranged in the vehicle width direction,
The cooling path is
An intake chamber connected to the upper end surface side of the assembled battery and connected to the duct ;
Cooling air supplied from the intake chamber flows in, an inter-battery cooling path formed between the cells adjacent in the vehicle width direction,
An exhaust chamber that is connected to a lower end surface side of the assembled battery and exhausts the cooling air discharged from the inter-battery cooling path into the housing recess outside the battery;
The vehicle according to claim 2, wherein the discharge port is a discharge port of the exhaust chamber. The vehicle according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the allowable level is a deterioration rate of a pressure loss with respect to a reference pressure loss of 5% or less.