Battery thermal management is a very active research focus in recent years because of its great essentiality for electric vehicles. In order to maintain the maximum temperature and local temperature difference in appropriate range, a new kind of cooling method for cylindrical batteries which is based on mini-channel liquid cooled cylinder is proposed in this paper. The effects of channel quantity, mass flow rate, flow direction and entrance size on the heat dissipation performance were investigated numerically. The results showed that the maximum temperature can be controlled under 40 degrees C for 42,110 cylindrical batteries when the number of mini-channel is no less than four and the inlet mass flow rate is 1 x 10(-3) - kg/s. Considering both the maximum temperature and local temperature difference, the cooling style by liquid cooled cylinder can demonstrate advantages compared to natural convection cooling only when the channel number is larger than eight. The capability of reducing the maximum temperature is limited through increasing the mass flow rate. The capacity of heat dissipation is enhanced first and then weakened along with the rising of entrance size, when the inlet mass flow rate is constant. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.