Designs to Prevent Thermal Runaway Propagation in Lithium-Ion Cell Shipping Packages

Abstract

Thermal runaway propagation in lithium-ion cells and batteries has been an area of intense study in the past few years based on the fires experienced with these cells and batteries during transportation as well as in field use. The UL team has worked on designs that will prevent the propagation of thermal runaway. Materials of different types and different designs of shipping packages have been studied to determine their effectiveness in preventing the propagation of thermal runaway. A single cell in a shipment package is triggered to go into thermal runaway and a baseline test with no mitigation designs will be compared to various materials and designs used to mitigate the propagation. The results of our test program will be presented.