Thermal modeling of fire propagation in lithium-ion batteries

• The objective of the present work is to assess the risk of spreading of fire between Lithium-ion battery cellsinitiated by a thermal runaway. In particular it aims at developing means to predict the temperature of cells inthe vicinity of an overheated cell during the first 5-7 minutes after the thermal event in a Li-ion cell that has anorganic based electrolyte which is flammable. Finite-Element (FE) modelling is used to compute the heattransfer between cells. The spreading model is assessed modeling a scenario where the cells are exposed to a15 kW propane burner. Two different models where utilized, one that considers the conjugate heat transferbetween the surrounding hot gases and the battery cells while the second is a thermal model where theboundary conditions are measured in a mock-up test. The results from the two models are contrasted toexperimental data where the heat release rate (HRR) is utilized as an input to the simulation. It is found thatthe temperature increase in a neighboring cell can be quantitatively estimated in certain cases during the earlystages of the fire taking into account the anisotropic thermal conductivity of the cells using the conjugate heattransfer model. Moreover, the thermal model captures the qualitative behavior of the test results, however, thetemperature increase is slower in the computational model.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik -- Annan fysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences -- Other Physics Topics (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

lithium-ion

propagation

thermal model

battery

fire

thermal runaway

Publikations- och innehållstyp

kon (ämneskategori)

ref (ämneskategori)