A novel distributed transient thermal model is proposed to investigate the thermal behavior of nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries under fast-charging processes at constant currents. Based on the method of integral transformation, a series-form solution for the temperature field inside the battery core is obtained that takes account for orthotropic heat conduction, transient heat generation, and convective heat dissipation at surfaces of the battery. The accuracy of the developed theoretical model is confirmed through comparisons with numerical and experimental data for a sample 30 ampere-hour NiMH battery. The comparisons show that even the first term of the series solution fairly predicts the temperature field with the modest numerical cost. The thermal model is also employed to define an efficiency for charging processes. Our calculations confirm that the charging efficiency decreases as the charging current increases. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.