Study of fire tests and fire safety measures on lithiumion battery used on ships

Abstract

The safety of the large capacity lithium-ion battery used on ships has been seriously concerned. A series of fire tests were conducted in a test chamber to study the fire behavior of lithium-ion batteries and judge the effective extinguishing agent. Lithium iron phosphate power batteries for ships were selected as the test specimen, and ignition was achieved by using an external fire. Firstly, in burning test series, the characteristics of fire growth and flame spread under a free-burn fire condition were observed. And then in fire suppression test series, the effects of three selected extinguishing agents were compared. The test results indicated that the battery fire exhibited a rapid increase when the electrolyte became involved in it, large amount of white smoke released in the process of battery thermal runaway until all the reactants had been consumed, and heptafluoropropane was verified to be most effective for suppressing fires and thermal runaway reactions. Finally, several fire safety measures for the lithium battery room were put forward, which were available for the ship design, construction and safety technical standard establishment.