Southwest Research Institute successfully customized and conducted a full-scale evaluation of a novel fire mitigation method designed to safely store damaged electric vehicles and batteries. SwRI engineers demonstrate customized research and development support for government and industry clients with novel projects and challenges related to emerging technologies where no standardized testing exists.
“SwRI established the nation’s first fire-focused research program 75 years ago, so our extensive capabilities allow us to develop novel tests to evaluate emerging technologies,” said Senior Research Engineer Kyle Fernandez, who led the experiment. “For this project, we created a customized test because no standardized test exists for EV containment enclosures yet.”
As the popularity of electric vehicles rises, the likelihood of accidents involving EVs also increases. Different makes and models of lithium-Ion batteries, which power electric and hybrid vehicles and can be hazardous when compromised, also proliferate.
“With a lot of emerging industries, the test standards haven’t caught up with the new technologies,” said Karen Carpenter, director of Fire Technology at Southwest Research Institute. “SwRI specializes in creating customized test programs to evaluate scenarios that don’t necessarily have a standardized method associated with them.”
Transporting or storing damaged EVs for repairs comes with inherent fire risks due to a phenomenon called thermal runaway, which can cause an electric battery to heat up so quickly it sparks a chain reaction that can lead to an out-of-control fire.
“Once an EV gets into an accident, the vehicle is potentially compromised and can catch fire at any point,” said Fernandez.
If a fire occurs in a repair facility, it can spread to nearby vehicles. Due to this risk, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recommends storing damaged EVs 50 feet away from other vehicles and structures, which can be challenging in urban settings with limited space.
“With our technical know-how and extensive lab space, we developed the capability to replicate thermal runaway to evaluate a vehicle enclosure to mitigate fire. Using thermocouples, we measured the temperature on the interior and exterior of the enclosure as fire fully engulfed the vehicle,” said Fernandez.
Using cameras, engineers monitored the fire from a safe location while collecting corresponding temperature and air quality data. While the interior wall reached nearly 2,000 degrees F at the height of the flames, the exterior wall remained cooler at just over 350 degrees F at the peak when the team flooded the container with an extinguishing agent to test the watertight seal. The customized experiment provided valuable data about the enclosure’s effectiveness.
