Sahithi Maddipatla1, Byoungchul Kwon2, Judith Jeevarajan2, and Michael Pecht1
1University of Maryland, College Park, USA
2UL Research Institutes, Houston, Texas, USA
For more information about this article and related research, please contact Prof. Michael Pecht.
Abstract:
Thermal runaway in a lithium‐ion cell is an uncontrollable self‐heating process, which can result in a fire, smoke, or in somecases, an explosion. Since thermal runaway cannot always be prevented, there is interest in detecting it prior to its onset. Thispaper reviews experimental and modeling studies focused on the early detection of thermal runaway, including methodologiesthat incorporate voltage, current, impedance, state of charge, temperature, force, strain, pressure, acoustic, and gas‐emissionindicators. The paper then compares the methodologies based on their capability to detect thermal runaway triggered bydifferent types of causes (electrical, mechanical, and thermal), the extent of advance warning provided for effective mitigationor evacuation, detection accuracy (minimizing false positives and false negatives), compatibility with different cell chemistriesand form factors, implementation complexity, and system‐level practicality. Beyond detection, the paper reviews safety inter-vention strategies to deploy after anomalies are identified, including battery management system (BMS)‐based protectiveactions, active cooling approaches, thermal propagation mitigation techniques, and fire‐suppression methods.
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