Full-Scale Fire Extinguishing Experiments to Analyze the Adaptability of Firefighting Facilities for Electric Vehicle Fires in Underground Parking Lots

Abstract

Recently, the number of electric vehicles (EVs) has rapidly increased owing to an increase in international environmental problems and domestic eco-friendly policies. With the increase in the number of EVs, the number of EV fires is also increasing. However, full-scale experiments for fire risk analysis or verification studies on the adaptability of present firefighting facilities are lacking , except for EV fire suppression experiments. In this study, to analyze the adaptability of firefighting facilities to EV fires in underground parking lots, fire extinguishing experiments on EV fires were conducted by considering the conditions of firefighting facilities applied to existing buildings. The first experiment simulated a current underground parking sprinkler system (pre-action system). In the second experiment, a lower sprinkler system was added to the upper sprinkler system. Experiment #1 confirmed that preventing the spread of thermal runaway in EV battery packs was difficult but blocking fire spread to adjacent vehicles was possible. Experiment #2 confirmed that thermal runaway occurred in approximately 50% of EV battery packs. These experiments concluded that fire spread to adjacent vehicles could be blocked by the spray from the upper sprinkler system.