Evaluation of External Short-Circuit Safety of NCM/C Li-Ion Power Battery under Different State of Health

With the increasing frequency of fire incidents of electric vehicles, the safety of power batteries has attracted more and more attention. At present, the research on the safety of power batteries is mainly focused on fresh batteries. As the state of health of batteries deepens, how the safety of the battery evolves is not clear enough so far. This paper analyzes the external short-circuit safety of a NCM/C rectangular battery under different state of charges. The results show that when the cycle number is less than 800, the maximum temperature of the battery during short-circuit is below 130 °C. The main failure mode of the battery is bulging in volume or opening of the explosion-proof valve and there is no obvious regularity between the failure mode with the cycle life. However, when the cycle number reaches 1000, the battery goes into thermal runaway during the safety test. In specific, the explosion-proof valve opens, and a large amount of smoke is sprayed, and the surface temperature of the battery reaches 350 °C with obvious burn marks. The research in this paper shows that when the battery ages to 85% state of health, its external short-circuit safety may have some inflection point, and its safety will be significantly degraded. Special attention should be paid to the safety of the aged batteries in operation.