IEC 62133-2 is slated to release a second edition in June of 2021.  The original scope of this project was intended to be an amendment to only address some minor revisions that the industry agreed were needed.  However, after over 3 years of work, it looks like some extensive changes and a new edition are being released.  This presentation will summarize the most important changes in the current proposals from the committee.

This presentation will cover the regulatory safety initiatives that are ongoing to develop a packaging standard for lithium batteries transported by aircraft and to regulate lithium batteries based on their inherent hazards including their ability to propagate from cell to cell and how violent they react when forced into thermal runaway. The presentation will focus on innovative methods for initiating thermal runaway of trigger cells and how to prevent cell-to-cell propagation in battery packs.

Fires involving the Arizona Public Service, NIO and Tesla – along with more than a dozen at South Korea power grid facilities – have heightened questions and concerns about lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery safety. Rightly so. Any number of fires is unacceptable; safety is always paramount. However, Li-ion batteries aren’t inherently unsafe. It’s how they’re architected that directly affects their safety.

Large and complex battery systems require an understanding of how single-cell failure might impact an entire system. After the impacts and consequences are identified, it is essential to determine mechanisms to mitigate the effects of a single cell failure on the entire pack. These mitigations require an understanding of the heat transfer within the battery pack to identify effective and reliable strategies to reduce the risk of failure propagation. In this study, we aim to incorporate the dynamics of heat transfer during failure propagation to make use of the system thermal mass and identify effective methods to mitigate failure propagation.

Kevin Bryan will present a new system developed to assist industry with regulatory compliance and significantly minimize the burden of complying with the new lithium battery test summary mandate to meet the requirements of the tests specified in the United Nations Manual of Tests and Criteria, Part III, sub-section 38.3.

For the first time in the world, we have succeeded in visualizing the electric current density inside batteries by deriving an analytical solution for the Inverse Problem. Based on the theory, we have developed an Image Analysis Software for diagnosing current density distribution in real-time without destruction of batteries by measuring the spatial distribution of magnetic fields

Designs to prevent propagation of thermal runaway in Li-ion modules or Li-ion cell packages is still under study. Our team has studied several materials to determine their efficacy to prevent propagation of fire and thermal runaway in Li-ion modules and Li-ion cell packages. The results of our studies will be presented during this talk.

This presentation shows the setup and results of three different thermal runaway triggers on modern battery cells in a custom-made TR reactor. It focuses on the trigger overtemperature, overcharge and nail-penetration. The investigated cell types are state-of-the-art automotive cells. The results are discussed in three main categories: thermal behavior, ventgas production and ventgas composition. The findings are supposed to be valuable for battery pack designer, testing institutions and regulations.

A summary of thermal runaway detection and consequence modeling from the UT Austin Fire Research Group. Failure detection has been performed using load cells, temperatures, gas sensors and ultrasonic systems. Multiple models have been developed to understand the thermal runaway process and its consequences. Mathematical models are presented to predict cell thermal runaway and cell-to-cell runaway propagation. Reduced order models and computational fluid dynamics models are used to model gas release, fire and explosion hazards.  Multiple models span scales ranging from single cell to fire and explosion consequences on people and structures.

As lithium-ion batteries advance, they have become increasingly energy dense and much of their design is focused on preventing and controlling possible thermal runaway. This becomes more important in applications such as energy storage system (ESS) and portable power systems. This presentation will demonstrate LHS’ XTS material which is custom designed to capture ejected thermal energy and to quench flaming that occurs while also improving the life of the battery pack.