On Jan. 15, 2024 we talked with Rohan (UWFE’s battery guy) to get his opinion on our pack’s cooling. Key concern/question was whether our cells were too close packed to provide space for air to pass through. This page is a general, bullet point info-dump of we got from the conversation since they have a lot of experience:
Formula’s pack consists of around 800 cells and has a current draw ranging from 80A to 130A. In comparison, MSXV’s pack consists of 288 cells and draws roughly 10A. The main factor that makes our pack hotter is that our car is 100% going to be in a very hot environment whereas Formula’s ambient temperature depends on the season that their competition is in (it can be in the Winter or the Summer).
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Just based on intuition, Rohan doesn’t find the cell packing within the module a concern for cooling. There are some design changes that can optimize cooling, but we do not know whether such a design change is necessary without testing. Battery should do a full pack cooling/thermal testing so that we have an idea of how effective cooling will be for our pack. This test will be planned and done in junction with all the other things we already have in our timeline, stopping everything we’re doing to focus on this testing is wholly not necessary and will only push us back farther. If something really is terribly wrong (which we think is most likely not going to be the case) then that will have to call for a core/leads meeting immediately. But if worst comes to absolute worst, we can ultimately just drive slower.
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