So you own an electric car with a sizeable lithium-based battery, how do you fight a battery fire? Experience with fighting electric car fires is not encouraging because you can't cut off the supply of oxygen to the fire like you can with a carbon fuel such as gasoline - the chemistry of all lithium battery variants supplies its own oxygen. There was a very large (mega) battery fire in OZ that took three days to extinguish. The fire really wasn't extinguished, just all of the lithium was consumed. Firefighters were given advice on how to fight the fire by Tesla, the batterie's designer, and UGL, the installer (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/02/tesla-big-battery-fire-in-victoria-burns-into-day-three): “They are difficult to fight because you can’t put water on the mega packs … all that does is extend the length of time that the fire burns for.” Firefighters have taken advice from experts including Tesla, the battery’s creators, and UGL, who are installing the battery packs. “The recommended process is you cool everything around it so the fire can’t spread and you let it burn out,” Beswicke said. It is somewhat like fighting large forest fires: you wait for Nature to put it out naturally with rain and/or snow, except worse. A fire in aircraft lithium battery pack will likely result in the complete destruction of the plane, even if it is on the ground when the fire started. If the fire starts while airborne your only option is to bail out (if you are not incapacitated by smoke first like the Taurus Electro glider fatal accident in NZ https://www.aviation.govt.nz/assets/publications/fatal-accident-reports/ZK-GEL-Final-Report-7-December-2020.pdf).
How to fight a lithium battery fire
Started by ●September 5, 2021
Reply by ●September 5, 20212021-09-05
On Sunday, September 5, 2021 at 1:51:38 PM UTC+10, Flyguy wrote:> So you own an electric car with a sizeable lithium-based battery, how do you fight a battery fire? Experience with fighting electric car fires is not encouraging because you can't cut off the supply of oxygen to the fire like you can with a carbon fuel such as gasoline - the chemistry of all lithium battery variants supplies its own oxygen.Not just lithium. Any battery chemistry depends on having both of the energy generating components built in. When they react to produce electricity, this is fine, but if you disrupt the battery structure they can also react to produce heat.> There was a very large (mega) battery fire in OZ that took three days to extinguish. The fire really wasn't extinguished, just all of the lithium was consumed. Firefighters were given advice on how to fight the fire by Tesla, the batterie's designer, and UGL, the installer (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/02/tesla-big-battery-fire-in-victoria-burns-into-day-three): > > “They are difficult to fight because you can’t put water on the mega packs … all that does is extend the length of time that the fire burns for.” > > Firefighters have taken advice from experts including Tesla, the battery’s creators, and UGL, who are installing the battery packs. > > “The recommended process is you cool everything around it so the fire can’t spread and you let it burn out,” Beswicke said. > > It is somewhat like fighting large forest fires: you wait for Nature to put it out naturally with rain and/or snow, except worse.Not exactly. In a forest fire the oxidant is the oxygen in the air, and it worth dumping water on them - aerial tankers are definitely useful in fighting forest fires, though you can't usually deliver enough water to put them out,> A fire in aircraft lithium battery pack will likely result in the complete destruction of the plane, even if it is on the ground when the fire started.It shouldn't, if the battery pack is rationally designed, which would include some provision for cutting it loose if it caught on fire.> If the fire starts while airborne your only option is to bail out (if you are not incapacitated by smoke first like the Taurus Electro glider fatal accident in NZ https://www.aviation.govt.nz/assets/publications/fatal-accident-reports/ZK-GEL-Final-Report-7-December-2020.pdf).Or dump the battery, if that option was designed in. -- Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply by ●September 5, 20212021-09-05
On Saturday, September 4, 2021 at 9:59:29 PM UTC-7, bill....@ieee.org wrote:> On Sunday, September 5, 2021 at 1:51:38 PM UTC+10, Flyguy wrote: > > So you own an electric car with a sizeable lithium-based battery, how do you fight a battery fire? Experience with fighting electric car fires is not encouraging because you can't cut off the supply of oxygen to the fire like you can with a carbon fuel such as gasoline - the chemistry of all lithium battery variants supplies its own oxygen. > Not just lithium. Any battery chemistry depends on having both of the energy generating components built in. When they react to produce electricity, this is fine, but if you disrupt the battery structure they can also react to produce heat. > > There was a very large (mega) battery fire in OZ that took three days to extinguish. The fire really wasn't extinguished, just all of the lithium was consumed. Firefighters were given advice on how to fight the fire by Tesla, the batterie's designer, and UGL, the installer (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/02/tesla-big-battery-fire-in-victoria-burns-into-day-three): > > > > “They are difficult to fight because you can’t put water on the mega packs … all that does is extend the length of time that the fire burns for.” > > > > Firefighters have taken advice from experts including Tesla, the battery’s creators, and UGL, who are installing the battery packs. > > > > “The recommended process is you cool everything around it so the fire can’t spread and you let it burn out,” Beswicke said. > > > > It is somewhat like fighting large forest fires: you wait for Nature to put it out naturally with rain and/or snow, except worse. > Not exactly. In a forest fire the oxidant is the oxygen in the air, and it worth dumping water on them - aerial tankers are definitely useful in fighting forest fires, though you can't usually deliver enough water to put them out, > > A fire in aircraft lithium battery pack will likely result in the complete destruction of the plane, even if it is on the ground when the fire started. > It shouldn't, if the battery pack is rationally designed, which would include some provision for cutting it loose if it caught on fire. > > If the fire starts while airborne your only option is to bail out (if you are not incapacitated by smoke first like the Taurus Electro glider fatal accident in NZ https://www.aviation.govt.nz/assets/publications/fatal-accident-reports/ZK-GEL-Final-Report-7-December-2020.pdf). > Or dump the battery, if that option was designed in. > > -- > SL0WMAN, Sydney"Cutting it loose?" It is clear that SL0WMAN is not a pilot and knows NOTHING about aircraft! The battery pack is often placed in the wings, so "cutting it loose" means cutting the WINGS OFF! And if it is in the fuselage it is even worse. But, for the sake of argument, if you could do this you would be dropping a very dangerous firebomb down onto the unsuspecting population. Try reading the accident report of a REAL accident. I said it was SOMETHING liking fighting a forest fire, not EXACTLY the same thing - reread it. The similarity is you CAN'T STOP THE FIRE. The bottom line for me is that I will NEVER own an electric aircraft using any foreseeable battery technology. And electric cars have the same problem - take the issue of the Chevy Bolt which now has a full recall. At least with them you can pull over to the side of the road if it catches fire. Stay tuned for more issues on this subject.
Reply by ●September 5, 20212021-09-05
On Sunday, September 5, 2021 at 12:59:29 AM UTC-4, bill....@ieee.org wrote:> On Sunday, September 5, 2021 at 1:51:38 PM UTC+10, Flyguy wrote: > > So you own an electric car with a sizeable lithium-based battery, how do you fight a battery fire? Experience with fighting electric car fires is not encouraging because you can't cut off the supply of oxygen to the fire like you can with a carbon fuel such as gasoline - the chemistry of all lithium battery variants supplies its own oxygen. > Not just lithium. Any battery chemistry depends on having both of the energy generating components built in. When they react to produce electricity, this is fine, but if you disrupt the battery structure they can also react to produce heat. > > There was a very large (mega) battery fire in OZ that took three days to extinguish. The fire really wasn't extinguished, just all of the lithium was consumed. Firefighters were given advice on how to fight the fire by Tesla, the batterie's designer, and UGL, the installer (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/02/tesla-big-battery-fire-in-victoria-burns-into-day-three): > > > > “They are difficult to fight because you can’t put water on the mega packs … all that does is extend the length of time that the fire burns for.” > > > > Firefighters have taken advice from experts including Tesla, the battery’s creators, and UGL, who are installing the battery packs. > > > > “The recommended process is you cool everything around it so the fire can’t spread and you let it burn out,” Beswicke said. > > > > It is somewhat like fighting large forest fires: you wait for Nature to put it out naturally with rain and/or snow, except worse. > Not exactly. In a forest fire the oxidant is the oxygen in the air, and it worth dumping water on them - aerial tankers are definitely useful in fighting forest fires, though you can't usually deliver enough water to put them out, > > A fire in aircraft lithium battery pack will likely result in the complete destruction of the plane, even if it is on the ground when the fire started. > It shouldn't, if the battery pack is rationally designed, which would include some provision for cutting it loose if it caught on fire. > > If the fire starts while airborne your only option is to bail out (if you are not incapacitated by smoke first like the Taurus Electro glider fatal accident in NZ https://www.aviation.govt.nz/assets/publications/fatal-accident-reports/ZK-GEL-Final-Report-7-December-2020.pdf). > Or dump the battery, if that option was designed in.I believe the philosophy is to design the pack so that one cell on fire loses heat fast enough that it does not ignite the other cells. Then the pack does not go up. -- Rick C. - Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging - Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
Reply by ●September 5, 20212021-09-05
On Sunday, September 5, 2021 at 5:16:17 PM UTC+10, Flyguy wrote:> On Saturday, September 4, 2021 at 9:59:29 PM UTC-7, bill....@ieee.org wrote: > > On Sunday, September 5, 2021 at 1:51:38 PM UTC+10, Flyguy wrote: > > > So you own an electric car with a sizeable lithium-based battery, how do you fight a battery fire? Experience with fighting electric car fires is not encouraging because you can't cut off the supply of oxygen to the fire like you can with a carbon fuel such as gasoline - the chemistry of all lithium battery variants supplies its own oxygen. > > Not just lithium. Any battery chemistry depends on having both of the energy generating components built in. When they react to produce electricity, this is fine, but if you disrupt the battery structure they can also react to produce heat. > > > > > There was a very large (mega) battery fire in OZ that took three days to extinguish. The fire really wasn't extinguished, just all of the lithium was consumed. Firefighters were given advice on how to fight the fire by Tesla, the batterie's designer, and UGL, the installer (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/02/tesla-big-battery-fire-in-victoria-burns-into-day-three): > > > > > > “They are difficult to fight because you can’t put water on the mega packs … all that does is extend the length of time that the fire burns for.” > > > > > > Firefighters have taken advice from experts including Tesla, the battery’s creators, and UGL, who are installing the battery packs. > > > > > > “The recommended process is you cool everything around it so the fire can’t spread and you let it burn out,” Beswicke said. > > > > > > It is somewhat like fighting large forest fires: you wait for Nature to put it out naturally with rain and/or snow, except worse. > > > > Not exactly. In a forest fire the oxidant is the oxygen in the air, and it worth dumping water on them - aerial tankers are definitely useful in fighting forest fires, though you can't usually deliver enough water to put them out, > > > A fire in aircraft lithium battery pack will likely result in the complete destruction of the plane, even if it is on the ground when the fire started. > > It shouldn't, if the battery pack is rationally designed, which would include some provision for cutting it loose if it caught on fire. > > > If the fire starts while airborne your only option is to bail out (if you are not incapacitated by smoke first like the Taurus Electro glider fatal accident in NZ https://www.aviation.govt.nz/assets/publications/fatal-accident-reports/ZK-GEL-Final-Report-7-December-2020.pdf). > > Or dump the battery, if that option was designed in. > > "Cutting it loose?" It is clear that SL0WMAN is not a pilot and knows NOTHING about aircraft! The battery pack is often placed in the wings, so "cutting it loose" means cutting the WINGS OFF!There are other options. Landing wheels have been known to retract into the wings.> And if it is in the fuselage it is even worse.Bombers seem to be designed to jettison large lump of explosive when in flight. It does seem to be a soluble problem, though perhaps a little beyond Flyguy's expertise.> But, for the sake of argument, if you could do this you would be dropping a very dangerous firebomb down onto the unsuspecting population.There's a lot of land under most flight paths, and not a lot of population. If you got enthusiastic you might design the battery pack to break up into small fragments - each of which would have a low terminal velocity - after it had been ejected, and none of which was big enough to do much damage. But Flyguy couldn't be expected to imagine anything that complicated.> Try reading the accident report of a REAL accident.They are voluminous, and not widely available.> > I said it was SOMETHING liking fighting a forest fire, not EXACTLY the same thing - reread it. The similarity is you CAN'T STOP THE FIRE.But you can stop small forest fires, with the right tools, and enough of them. Forests aren't designed. Battery packs ought to be.> The bottom line for me is that I will NEVER own an electric aircraft using any foreseeable battery technology. And electric cars have the same problem - take the issue of the Chevy Bolt which now has a full recall. At least with them you can pull over to the side of the road if it catches fire.Tesla still seems to be doing okay. One bad apple isn't a good reason to reject the rest of the crop.> Stay tuned for more issues on this subject.Don't bother. -- Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply by ●September 5, 20212021-09-05
On a sunny day (Sun, 5 Sep 2021 00:16:14 -0700 (PDT)) it happened Flyguy <soar2morrow@yahoo.com> wrote in <855b7e32-24c4-49e0-977a-a2a8b6923a45n@googlegroups.com>:>The bottom line for me is that I will NEVER own an electric aircraft using any >foreseeable battery technology.There exisst Lifepo4 batteries But I really do not know if the current capacity is enough to keep an airplane in the air for a reasonable amount of time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery#Safety But I do think the move towards 'every transport electric' is extremely dangerous as no emergency services will be available if the power grid fails as we have seen now in Louisiana, You would not be able to charge your electric plane either.
Reply by ●September 5, 20212021-09-05
Anthony William Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:>> It is somewhat like fighting large forest fires: you wait for Nature to put it out naturally with rain and/or snow, except worse. > > Not exactly. In a forest fire the oxidant is the oxygen in the air, and it worth dumping water on them - aerial tankers are definitely useful in fighting forest fires, though you can't usually deliver enough water to put them out,Aerial tankers normally do not deliver plain water to forest fires, they deliver "retardent", a mixture of water and some substance that delays the fire spread. This is dropped in lines around the fire (or usually one line in the direction of the wind) to try to stop the progress of the fire at that line. The already burning trees are left burning, but hopefully no new trees will light up. It is possible to drop water but it is done usually with helicopters. A plane would disperse the relatively small load of water over too large an area, it would not cool the fire very much and would just evaporate. A helicopter can dump a bucket of water straight down. But of course that only works on small fires.
Reply by ●September 5, 20212021-09-05
On Sat, 4 Sep 2021 20:51:34 -0700 (PDT), Flyguy <soar2morrow@yahoo.com> wrote:>So you own an electric car with a sizeable lithium-based battery, how do you fight a battery fire? Experience with fighting electric car fires is not encouraging because you can't cut off the supply of oxygen to the fire like you can with a carbon fuel such as gasoline - the chemistry of all lithium battery variants supplies its own oxygen. > >There was a very large (mega) battery fire in OZ that took three days to extinguish. The fire really wasn't extinguished, just all of the lithium was consumed. Firefighters were given advice on how to fight the fire by Tesla, the batterie's designer, and UGL, the installer (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/02/tesla-big-battery-fire-in-victoria-burns-into-day-three): > >�They are difficult to fight because you can�t put water on the mega packs � all that does is extend the length of time that the fire burns for.� > >Firefighters have taken advice from experts including Tesla, the battery�s creators, and UGL, who are installing the battery packs. > >�The recommended process is you cool everything around it so the fire can�t spread and you let it burn out,� Beswicke said. > >It is somewhat like fighting large forest fires: you wait for Nature to put it out naturally with rain and/or snow, except worse. A fire in aircraft lithium battery pack will likely result in the complete destruction of the plane, even if it is on the ground when the fire started. If the fire starts while airborne your only option is to bail out (if you are not incapacitated by smoke first like the Taurus Electro glider fatal accident in NZ https://www.aviation.govt.nz/assets/publications/fatal-accident-reports/ZK-GEL-Final-Report-7-December-2020.pdf).There was an idea here of putting whole car in a bag of water. There will be problems with that, I think. For instance, can somebody calculate how much will a common electric car battery rise temperature of a few cubic meters of water.
Reply by ●September 5, 20212021-09-05
Le 05/09/2021 à 05:51, Flyguy a écrit :> So you own an electric car with a sizeable lithium-based battery, how do you fight a battery fire? Experience with fighting electric car fires is not encouraging because you can't cut off the supply of oxygen to the fire like you can with a carbon fuel such as gasoline - the chemistry of all lithium battery variants supplies its own oxygen. > > There was a very large (mega) battery fire in OZ that took three days to extinguish. The fire really wasn't extinguished, just all of the lithium was consumed. Firefighters were given advice on how to fight the fire by Tesla, the batterie's designer, and UGL, the installer (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/02/tesla-big-battery-fire-in-victoria-burns-into-day-three): > > “They are difficult to fight because you can’t put water on the mega packs … all that does is extend the length of time that the fire burns for.” > > Firefighters have taken advice from experts including Tesla, the battery’s creators, and UGL, who are installing the battery packs. > > “The recommended process is you cool everything around it so the fire can’t spread and you let it burn out,” Beswicke said. > > It is somewhat like fighting large forest fires: you wait for Nature to put it out naturally with rain and/or snow, except worse. A fire in aircraft lithium battery pack will likely result in the complete destruction of the plane, even if it is on the ground when the fire started. If the fire starts while airborne your only option is to bail out (if you are not incapacitated by smoke first like the Taurus Electro glider fatal accident in NZ https://www.aviation.govt.nz/assets/publications/fatal-accident-reports/ZK-GEL-Final-Report-7-December-2020.pdf). >I think the real problem concerns recycling and building of such batteries. In their useful life they are not concentrated in a single place and this should help a lot. Big storage arrays seems a bad idea anyway.
Reply by ●September 5, 20212021-09-05
On Sunday, September 5, 2021 at 9:19:43 PM UTC+10, LM wrote:> On Sat, 4 Sep 2021 20:51:34 -0700 (PDT), Flyguy > <soar2...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > >So you own an electric car with a sizeable lithium-based battery, how do you fight a battery fire? Experience with fighting electric car fires is not encouraging because you can't cut off the supply of oxygen to the fire like you can with a carbon fuel such as gasoline - the chemistry of all lithium battery variants supplies its own oxygen. > > > >There was a very large (mega) battery fire in OZ that took three days to extinguish. The fire really wasn't extinguished, just all of the lithium was consumed. Firefighters were given advice on how to fight the fire by Tesla, the batterie's designer, and UGL, the installer (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/02/tesla-big-battery-fire-in-victoria-burns-into-day-three): > > > >“They are difficult to fight because you can’t put water on the mega packs … all that does is extend the length of time that the fire burns for.” > > > >Firefighters have taken advice from experts including Tesla, the battery’s creators, and UGL, who are installing the battery packs. > > > >“The recommended process is you cool everything around it so the fire can’t spread and you let it burn out,” Beswicke said. > > > >It is somewhat like fighting large forest fires: you wait for Nature to put it out naturally with rain and/or snow, except worse. A fire in aircraft lithium battery pack will likely result in the complete destruction of the plane, even if it is on the ground when the fire started. If the fire starts while airborne your only option is to bail out (if you are not incapacitated by smoke first like the Taurus Electro glider fatal accident in NZ https://www.aviation.govt.nz/assets/publications/fatal-accident-reports/ZK-GEL-Final-Report-7-December-2020.pdf). > > There was an idea here of putting whole car in a bag of water. There > will be problems with that, I think. For instance, can somebody > calculate how much will a common electric car battery rise temperature > of a few cubic meters of water.Apparently the Tesla S has a 100kWhour battery capacity. That's 360 Megajoules. A cubic metre of water weighs 997 kilograms. The heat capacity of water is 4.184 joules per Kelvin per kilogram, so that amount of energy would warm up one cubic metre of water by 361 degrees Kelvin. You have to compress it hard to stop it from boiling. The latent heat of evaporation of water is 2,260 kJ/kg, so to evaporate that cubic metre of water you'd need 2,253.22 Megajoules. The battery could evaporate about 15% of that volume of water. Four cubic metres of water wouldn't get up the boil. It's a trivial exercise. -- Bill Sloman, Sydney
