Simulation of abuse tolerance of lithium-ion battery packs

doi:10.1016/j.jpowsour.2006.10.013

Journal of Power Sources

Volume 163, Issue 2, 1 January 2007, Pages 1080-1086

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2006.10.013 Get rights and content

Abstract

A simple approach for using accelerating rate calorimetry data to simulate the thermal abuse resistance of battery packs is described. The thermal abuse tolerance of battery packs is estimated based on the exothermic behavior of a single cell and an energy balance than accounts for radiative, conductive, and convective heat transfer modes of the pack. For the specific example of a notebook computer pack containing eight 18650-size cells, the effects of cell position, heat of reaction, and heat-transfer coefficient are explored. Thermal runaway of the pack is more likely to be induced by thermal runaway of a single cell when that cell is in good contact with other cells and is close to the pack wall.

Introduction

The safety of lithium-ion cells has been of foremost concern from their inception as evidenced by the number of safety devices developed specifically for lithium-ion cells [1], [2]. However, much less attention, at least in the technical literature, has been paid to the safety of lithium-ion packs. For example, lithium-ion packs for portable computers represent a significant portion of the market for 18650-size cells, and only a few papers [3], [4] address the thermal behavior, much less the abuse tolerance, of a typical pack. This short communication presents a new approach for estimating the thermal abuse tolerance of lithium-ion battery packs based on the behavior of individual cells.

Section snippets

Model

Approaches to modeling the thermal abuse of lithium-ion cells have been reviewed previously [5]. For pack modeling, the heat generated in the cell is determined experimentally and then used in an energy balance for the pack to predict the pack temperature. The heat generation rate of the cell can be obtained by experimental characterization using accelerating rate calorimetry (ARC); ARC is widely used to characterize lithium-ion cells [6], [7], [8] but a review is beyond the scope of this short

Simulation results and discussion

A common experimental method used to explore the abuse tolerance of a pack is to force one cell into thermal runaway and observe the resultant behavior: will other cells also go into thermal runaway or will the pack cool down? This can be an expensive test, so it is usually limited in scope. For example, only the cell in a single position might be brought into thermal runaway. However, with simulation, a wide number of experimental conditions can be explored. Here the effects of cell position

Conclusion

The simulation results presented here show that the thermal abuse tolerance of a pack is extremely sensitive to the exothermic behavior of the cells. A small increase in the heat released by the exothermic reaction of a single cell can cause the pack to go into thermal runaway. This finding may explain why the number of safety incidents with laptop computers is increasing as the energy density of the cells increases. This work also shows the importance of heat-transfer from the pack and helps

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Short communicationSimulation of abuse tolerance of lithium-ion battery packs

Abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Model

Simulation results and discussion

Conclusion

J. Power Sources

J. Power Sources

J. Power Sources

J. Power Sources

J. Power Sources

Short communication
Simulation of abuse tolerance of lithium-ion battery packs