Patent ID: 8039141

Claim:
A battery module, comprising: a plurality of unit batteries spaced apart from each other; and cell barriers, the cell barriers including flow pathways for directing the flow of cooling medium therethrough, the cell barriers being disposed adjacent to the unit batteries, and the unit batteries and the cell barriers being alternately stacked in the battery module to form a stacked structure, wherein: the cell barriers have different strengths depending on their position in the battery module relative to a center of the battery module, a cell barrier disposed near an end of the battery module has a first structure that is stronger and that is less effective at heat transfer by the cooling medium than a second structure of a cell barrier disposed closer to the center of the battery module than the first structure, the stacked structure includes at least one cell barrier having the second structure disposed between two adjacent unit batteries, end plates disposed at opposing ends of the stacked structure, the end plates being configured to support the unit batteries, and at least two cell barriers having the first structure and being disposed only adjacent to the end plates in the stacked structure, the first structure of the cell barrier disposed near the end of the battery module is different from the second structure of the cell barrier disposed near the center of the battery module such that the flow pathways of the first structure of the cell barrier disposed near the end of the battery module are defined by cooling medium channels and the flow pathways of the second structure of the cell barrier disposed near the center of the battery module are defined by protrusions that are spaced apart, the cell barriers include a first cell barrier having the first structure in direct contact with a first side of an outermost unit battery of the unit batteries in the stacked structure, and a second cell barrier having the second structure in direct contact with a second side of the outermost unit battery, the first side opposing the second side, and each cooling medium channel of the first cell barrier having the first structure includes a hole that passes through an interior of the first cell barrier along a length direction of the first cell barrier, and the cooling medium channel is absent from the cell barriers having the second structure.