Electric Vehicle Battery Pack Design for Mitigating Thermal Runaway Propagation

The production of electric vehicle battery packs with ever-increasing energy densities has accelerated the electrification of the world’s automotive industry. With increased attention on the electric vehicle markets, it is vital to increase the safety of these vehicles which now hold higher hazardous potential. This paper aims to explore the field of pack-level thermal runaway mechanisms and evaluate potential mitigation strategies. Most available literature concentrates on the micromanagement of thermal runaway whereas this paper takes a more holistic approach. Thermal simulations for analysing thermal runaway of modules in differing locations are run to characterise the behaviour of a thermal runaway event at pack-level. Results suggest that the propagation of thermal runaway is consistently severe in a cooling plate cooled battery pack as the cooling plate acts as a channel for high temperatures. Additionally, thermal insulation added to contain the rapid increase in temperature unfortunately results in wider spread higher temperatures.