Standardized Heating Method to Trigger and Prevent Thermal Runaway Propagation in Lithium-Ion Batteries

Lithium-ion (Li-ion) cells are increasingly used in high-voltage and high-capacity modules. The Li-ion chemistry has the highest energy density of all rechargeable battery chemistries, but associated with that energy is the issue of catastrophic thermal runaway with a fire. With recent incidents in the commercial aerospace and electronics sectors, methods are required to prevent cell-to-cell thermal runaway propagation. The goal of this work was to achieve a common method for triggering a single cell in a Li-ion battery module into thermal runaway, determine if one can consistently obtain this thermal runaway event, and design mitigation measures to address propagation of the thermal runaway to other cells in the module.