Design for Thermal Runaway/Battery Fires

Basics

• Part of Design for X / a subset of Design for Safety etc
• Essentially rather than assume the battery will not catch fire, assume that it will and design accordingly
  • Largely Passive Fire Protection systems etc
• GRANTED one can also include the preventative aspects of
  • Battery Management System + Battery State of Health Calculation/Logging
  • Recordkeeping on Batch Numbers, Recalls and whatnot
  • Battery Thermal Management Systems / Battery Temperature Probes
  • Design for Inspection / Design for Disassembly
• Finally Design for Firefighting (especially in terms of EV Charging Stations and BESS

Aspects

Containment

• The Flames and Heat Need to be Contained/Delayed
• Largely covered by Firewall / Firebreak materials / knowledge base

Venting of Smoke/Fumes

• The mixture of burning electronics, and the materials in the individual cells makes some NASTY fumes
• For portable/smaller devices not much else may be done short of an intentional vent (akin to how in Automobile Fires , Autogas / CNG tanks are designed to vent a flame upwards in a controlled manner
  • Also not entirely disimilar from “blowoff panels” in Non-Russian Tank Ammunition Magazines
• Having some sort of Filtration akin to “Cockcroft's Folly” may be neat (Although there isn’t the risk of radioactivity in this case, just nasties in burnt battery/electronics)

Fire Suppression/Cooling

• Lithium Ion Battery Fires / EV Fires are an emerging type of fire that hasn’t been figured out exactly yey
• The YouTube Channel “StacheDTraining” has several videos on the topic
• A Video by the YouTube Channel “StacheDTraining” Titled “What Firefighting Tools for Extinguishing Electric Vehicle Fires Really Work?” ( ‘’’~6 Minute Watch’’’ )
  • TLDW: As of that video’s release, none
  • Most Battery “Skateboards” are too sealed up for water / AFFF to penetrate+do it’s thing (also hard to smother as they can burn on their own to an extent
  • Class D Fire Extinguishers only work on pure metal fires such as a pile of Magnesium Shavings etc
  • Fire Blankets MAY help contain the fire/gas, but combustible/explosive gas buildup becomes an issue
  • Penetrating Nozzles MAY work, but due to the lack of a commom (regulated) point akin to a Jack Point etc it is unclear if it will work on the first “go”. Also any UNHARMED batteries could be triggered by this device
    • One of the more promising designs though
    • In terms of Design for Firefighting having a “stab here if on fire” placard and/or distribute (open source) training materials on this may be a way of addressing this issue.