Li-ion Battery Fault Detection in Large Packs Using Force and Gas Sensors

Abstract

Internal short circuits are a leading cause of battery thermal runaway, and hence a major safety issue for electric vehicles. An internal short circuit with low resistance is called a hard internal short, which causes a high internal current flow that leads to an extremely fast temperature rise, gas generation, cell swelling, and ultimately battery rupture and failure. Thus it is crucial to detect these faults immediately after they get triggered. In large battery packs with many cells in parallel, detecting an internal short circuit event using voltage is difficult due to suppression of the voltage signal from the faulty cell by the other healthy cells connected in parallel. In contrast, analyzing the gas composition in the pack enclosure can provide a robust single cell failure detection method. At elevated temperature, decomposition of the battery materials results in gas generation and cell swelling. The cell structure is designed to rupture at a critical gas pressure and vent the accumulated CO2 gas, in order to prevent explosive forces. In this paper, we extend our previous work by combining the models of cell thermal dynamics, swelling, and CO2 gas generation. In particular, we developed a fast and high confidence level detection method of hard internal short circuit events for a battery pack by measuring cell expansion force and monitoring CO2 concentrations in a pack enclosure.