The thermal performance of phase change material (PCM) based battery thermal management system in dynamic cycling is investigated, and several factors influencing the PCM system are discussed in detail. It is established that the surface temperature of a single battery has two temperature peaks during one charge/discharge cycle, while it disappears in the PCM system for the temperature buffering of PCM. In addition, the cooling performance of the PCM system is superior to that of natural convection system especially at a high current rate. Moreover, increasing the laying-aside time properly between each cycling step is beneficial to the cooling performance of the PCM system. Additionally, PCM with a phase change temperature of 45 degrees C is recommended to be used in the real battery pack system. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.