A thermal modeling was performed to study the effect of the electrode configuration on the thermal behavior of a lithium-polymer battery. It was examined the effect of the configuration of the electrodes such as the aspect ratio of the electrodes and the placing of current collecting tabs as well as the discharge rates on the thermal behavior of the battery. The potential and current density distribution on the electrodes of a lithium-polymer battery were predicted as a function of discharge time by using the finite element method. Then, based on the results of the modeling of potential and current density distributions, the temperature distributions of the lithium-polymer battery were calculated. The temperature distributions from the modeling were in good agreement with those from the experimental measurement for the batteries with three different types of electrodes at the discharge rates of 1C, 3C, and 5C. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.