Effect of lithium-ion battery diameter on thermal runaway propagation rate under one-dimensional linear arrangement

Abstract

• Effect of LIB diameter on thermal runaway propagation rate is analyzed. • Dimensionless model for predict thermal runaway propagation rate is proposed. • Thermal runaway propagation rate of LIBs from different manufacturers are compared. The number of related fire accidents is gradually increasing due to the extensive use of LIBs. In this paper, a series of tests were set up to investigate the influence of the diameter of cylindrical lithium battery on the thermal runaway propagation rate. The battery diameter is between 10 mm and 21 mm. Batteries in the modules is a one-dimensional linear arrangement. Results indicate that the thermal runaway development process of a battery with a one-dimensional linear arrangement is quite different from a single battery. The “Warm-up phase” in the battery module is the main reason. The battery diameter affects the parameters of thermal runaway propagation. With the increase of LIB diameter, thermal runaway propagation time increase gradually. Relationship between the dimensional diameter ( B* ) and the dimensional thermal runaway propagation rate ( v* ) was obtained. The accuracy of the model is verified by batteries from test data from different manufacturers.