Electric Vehicle Battery Pack Design for Mitigating Thermal Runaway Propagation

Copsey, Ewan; Sun, Hongjian; Jiang, Jing

Abstract

The production of electric vehicle battery packs with ever-increasing energy densities has accelerated the electrification of the world’s automotive industry. With increased attention on the electric vehicle markets, it is vital to increase the safety of these vehicles which now hold higher hazardous potential. This paper aims to explore the field of pack-level thermal runaway mechanisms and evaluate potential mitigation strategies. Most available literature concentrates on the micromanagement of thermal runaway whereas this paper takes a more holistic approach. Thermal simulations for analysing thermal runaway of modules in differing locations are run to characterise the behaviour of a thermal runaway event at pack-level. Results suggest that the propagation of thermal runaway is consistently severe in a cooling plate cooled battery pack as the cooling plate acts as a channel for high temperatures. Additionally, thermal insulation added to contain the rapid increase in temperature unfortunately results in wider spread higher temperatures.

Citation

Copsey, E., Sun, H., & Jiang, J. (2022). Electric Vehicle Battery Pack Design for Mitigating Thermal Runaway Propagation. . https://doi.org/10.1109/vtc2022-fall57202.2022.10012777

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (Published)
• Conference Name: 2022 IEEE 96th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC2022-Fall)
• Start Date: Sep 26, 2022
• End Date: Sep 29, 2022
• Acceptance Date: Aug 26, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Jan 18, 2023
• Publication Date: 2022
• Deposit Date: Sep 5, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 30, 2022
• Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/vtc2022-fall57202.2022.10012777
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1136216
• Related Public URLs: https://events.vtsociety.org/vtc2022-fall/