Characterization of Lithium-Ion Battery Thermal Abuse Behavior Using Experimental and Computational Analysis

TLDR

Lithium‑ion batteries are widely used but pose safety risks from thermal instability, especially thermal runaway, prompting stringent selection in aerospace and automotive applications. The study seeks to characterize thermal runaway reactions by adapting a thermal‑abuse model to simulate constant‑power heating tests on single cells. The authors performed constant‑power heating experiments and modified an existing thermal‑abuse model to account for convection, cell geometry, and electrolyte combustion. The modified model predictions agree with experimental data across various cell configurations.

Abstract

While the popularity of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) has increased significantly in recent years, safety concerns due to the high thermal instability of LIBs limit their use in applications with zero tolerance for a catastrophic failure. Industries such as aerospace and automotive must be very stringent in their selection and design of lithium-ion cells and modules to meet safety requirements. A safety issue of particular interest is a scenario called thermal runaway in which one or more exothermic side-reactions occur, leading to elevated temperature ranges that in turn lead to an uncontrollable and excessive release of heat. This work aims to characterize the effect of these reactions by utilizing a thermal abuse model that predicts single-cell behavior when subjected to an elevated-temperature. The experimental test of the thermal safety behavior includes a constant-power heating element to trigger a thermal runaway event. This study takes an existing thermal abuse model and modifies it to emulate the conditions during a constant-power heating test. The result is found to be in agreement with the experimental data for different cell configurations. The influence of convection condition, cell physical configuration, and electrolyte combustion on the cell thermal behavior is also investigated.