Optimization Approaches for Battery Pack Layout and Integration: A Review of Methods, Tools, and Research Gaps

Abstract

Electric vehicle (EV) battery packs strongly influence vehicle performance, safety, cost, and energy efficiency. This paper presents a structured review of optimization approaches for EV battery-pack design, focusing on four interacting domains: structural design, thermal management, spatial packaging, and system-level multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO). The reviewed literature is examined to identify common design objectives, simulation tools, optimization algorithms, and remaining research gaps. The review shows that structural optimization, particularly crashworthiness and lightweight enclosure design using finite element analysis, surrogate modelling, and multi-objective algorithms, is comparatively well developed. Thermal management is also one of the most actively studied areas, with extensive use of computational fluid dynamics, surrogate modelling, and multi-objective optimization. In contrast, spatial packaging optimization, defined here as the three-dimensional placement and orientation of battery modules or pack structures within a vehicle-defined envelope, remains less systematically addressed. Few studies integrate structural, thermal, packaging, electrical, and vehicle-level requirements within a single solver-based MDO framework. The review therefore identifies vehicle-level spatial battery-pack optimization as a key research gap and a promising direction for future integrated battery-pack design.