Battery nail penetration test
- Thread starter Jonndeka
- Start date
DingusMcGee
10 kW
Yes, such a hazardous destructive test is possible to do and safely. Likely you will lose all the cell groups that are in restrained contact —$$?
Thoughts in the paragraph below are speculation:
Any nail penetration comparable in size (diameter) to the cell’s dendritic wire will not short together very many of these minuscule current carrying wires. But a 16d nail driven thru a single cell would seem likely to cause significant heating of a rectangular solid region (aligned with the dendritic wire flow direction) that had a width of 2 x nail’s D. This hot volume could be some 5 - 10% of the cell’s volume — and that heat would warm neighboring regions.
Once I had a lithium polymer cell fire in an electric car of mine. You cannot put ‘em out with water. The fire department put 1000 gallons of runway fire foam retardant on the cells. Temps were measured at 900F. The batteries chemistry goes to full energy depletion boiling the foam’s water content. They left the scene with the fire truck out of foam and in my yard a very hot car body.
The car had two cell locations. All the cells located in the trunk were all char. The front hood cell’s survived likely because they were fused to the rear with a 500 amps fuse. These surviving LiPo cell packs are still in use today — bought 2017.
The point here is that if each battery is not near another battery you lessen the likelihood of a multiple battery puncture and a heat conduction generated fire propagating to other unharmed cells that touch one another.
But, NO EXPLOSIONS
Thoughts in the paragraph below are speculation:
Any nail penetration comparable in size (diameter) to the cell’s dendritic wire will not short together very many of these minuscule current carrying wires. But a 16d nail driven thru a single cell would seem likely to cause significant heating of a rectangular solid region (aligned with the dendritic wire flow direction) that had a width of 2 x nail’s D. This hot volume could be some 5 - 10% of the cell’s volume — and that heat would warm neighboring regions.
Once I had a lithium polymer cell fire in an electric car of mine. You cannot put ‘em out with water. The fire department put 1000 gallons of runway fire foam retardant on the cells. Temps were measured at 900F. The batteries chemistry goes to full energy depletion boiling the foam’s water content. They left the scene with the fire truck out of foam and in my yard a very hot car body.
The car had two cell locations. All the cells located in the trunk were all char. The front hood cell’s survived likely because they were fused to the rear with a 500 amps fuse. These surviving LiPo cell packs are still in use today — bought 2017.
The point here is that if each battery is not near another battery you lessen the likelihood of a multiple battery puncture and a heat conduction generated fire propagating to other unharmed cells that touch one another.
But, NO EXPLOSIONS
Last edited:
Thanks for sharing your experience.Yes, such a hazardous destructive test is possible to do and safely. Likely you will lose all the cell groups that are in restrained contact —$$?
Thoughts in the paragraph below are speculation:
Any nail penetration comparable in size (diameter) to the cell’s dendritic wire will not short together very many of these minuscule current carrying wires. But a 16d nail driven thru a single cell would seem likely to cause significant heating of a rectangular solid region (aligned with the dendritic wire flow direction) that had a width of 2 x nail’s D. This hot volume could be some 5 - 10% of the cell’s volume — and that heat would warm neighboring regions.
Once I had a lithium polymer cell fire in an electric car of mine. You cannot put ‘em out with water. The fire department put 1000 gallons of runway fire foam retardant on the cells. Temps were measured at 900F. The batteries chemistry goes to full energy depletion boiling the foam’s water content. They left the scene with the fire truck out of foam and in my yard a very hot car body.
The car had two cell locations. All the cells located in the trunk were all char. The front hood cell’s survived likely because they were fused to the rear with a 500 amps fuse. These surviving LiPo cell packs are still in use today — bought 2017.
The point here is that if each battery is not near another battery you lessen the likelihood of a multiple battery puncture and a heat conduction generated fire propagating to other unharmed cells that touch one another.
But, NO EXPLOSIONS
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