Browse Topic: Fire prevention
India's electric 2-wheeler (E2W) market has witnessed fast growth, driven by lucrative government policies. The two-wheeler segment dominates the Indian automotive market, accounting for the largest share of total sales. Consequently, the manufacturers of 2-wheelers are developing new electric vehicles (EV) tailored for the Indian market. However, the Indian EV market has witnessed multiple fire accidents in recent years, raising safety concerns among consumers and industry stakeholders. These incidents highlight key weakness in battery thermal management systems (BTMS), particularly during charging. Most existing E2W BTMS relies on passive (natural) air cooling, which has been associated with fire incidents due to its inefficiency in heat dissipation, particularly during charging in India's high-temperature environment. Therefore, it is imperative to build thermally viable and economical BTMS for the growing E2W vehicles with fast charging capability. FEV is actively developing the thermally efficient and cost-effective BTMS solutions tailored for Indian E2Ws operating in extreme climatic conditions. The present study evaluates a novel approach of integrating heat carrier plates into the E2W with 3.6 kWh battery pack, which is analyzed under natural and forced air cooling system. The airtight battery pack is located under the floorboard region. The multiple internal heat carrier plates models are developed and integrated with aligned and staggered cell arrangement to evaluate heat dissipation and temperature uniformity with the battery pack. The study further proposes a concept of duct and fan placement for the application during forced air cooling. The simulations are performed at a high ambient temperature of 45 °C, representing a worst-case scenario in India, using charging rates of 0.2 C for natural cooling and 0.35 C for forced cooling. The results show that the aligned cell model with 4-heat carrier plates achieve superior temperature distribution across cells, with a lower average module temperature of 49.6 °C, minimal temperature gradient of 1.3°C and reduced maximum cell temperature of 50 °C, under natural cooling. In forced air-cooling mode, the split air duct model provides better cooling over the battery cover surfaces with maximum temperature of 55 °C with ΔT of 4°C. The study also presents comprehensive details of modelling approaches and outlines the scope of further research for developing thermally efficient BTMS for E2Ws.
Author turns classroom quest into a tome for anyone who wants to engineer safer cars. A seasoned engineer with a multi-discipline background in electronics, manufacturing systems, and forensic analysis, Erbis Biscarri brought decades of experience to the topic of automotive safety in his latest work. Biscarri's book, Fires in Conventional and Electrified Vehicles: Theory, Prevention, and Analysis, published by SAE International, offers a comprehensive guide to one of the industry's most pressing challenges: vehicle fire safety. In addition to technical analysis, Biscarri said, the book helps clarify common misconceptions, especially those surrounding electric vehicle fires, by grounding the discussion in documented incident data and established technological principles.
Forest fire prevention and control agencies in São Carlos, in the interior of the state of São Paulo, Brazil, will soon have help from the sky to detect fires more quickly and combat them before they grow out of control and cannot be extinguished.
This document is reissued for application to helicopters.
Hydrogen-electric vertical takeoff and landing (H2eVTOL) (or fuel cell-electric VTOL) aircraft technologies are poised to emerge in the next coming decades and start operating from existing heliports and new vertiports. This paper assesses how key H2eVTOL design features interact with the ground infrastructure and how facility designers can address H2eVTOL specific facility requirements–especially the supply of hydrogen to the aircraft. Vertiport design should maximize compatibility are important to facilitate the accommodation of hydrogen technologies, minimize the need for extensive capital investments, and promote safety and operational efficiency. Considerations should be given to factors such as general aircraft configuration, electric and hybrid propulsion systems, and refueling infrastructure. The definition of notional aircraft concepts representing the evolution of critical VTOL aircraft over the next coming decades can help aviation facility planners and designers understand the type of vehicles they need to account for and also evaluate the future hydrogen demand. The lack of aviation-specific standards, especially when it comes to fire prevention, might adversely impact vertiports. Strategies are proposed for mitigating the effects of hydrogen operations at space-constrained facilities.
Batteries in electric vehicles can fail quickly, sometimes catching fire without much warning. Sandia National Laboratories is working to detect these failures early and provide sufficient warning time to vehicle occupants.
Letter from the Focus Issue Editors
This guide is intended to promote safe designs, operations and maintenance on aircraft and ground support oxygen systems. This is also a summary of some work by the ASTM G 4 Committee related to oxygen fire investigations and design concerns to reduce the risk of an oxygen fire. There have been many recent technological advances and additional test data is available for evaluating and controlling combustion hazards in oxygen equipment. Standards that use this new information are rapidly evolving. A guide is needed to assist organizations and persons not completely familiar with this process to provide oxygen systems with minimum risks of combustion. This guide does not necessarily address all the detailed issues and provide all data that will be needed. For a complete analysis, supplemental publications need to be consulted. This guide does discuss the basics of oxygen systems fire hazards. The hazard analysis process is discussed and a simple example to explain this process. Also, this guide does not address the overall system safety issues normally evaluated in aircraft programs. This guide does provide some important background and observations about combustion in oxygen systems. Information is given describing how to accomplish a hazard analysis. Furthermore, background is provided to explain critical locations in oxygen systems that need to be evaluated and other locations that do not require hazard analysis. It is important to note that any effort that requires a comprehensive and effective hazard analysis should use the complete information in the documents referenced herein. In general, the need for a hazard analysis applies primarily to gaseous oxygen equipment at 50 psi and higher pressures. LOX equipment does have hazards concerns as well and is usually treated similarly to GOX equipment at 500 psi. It should be noted that there are other phenomena associated with LOX equipment that must be considered. An example is that LOX can combine with hydrocarbons to form a gel, which explodes under impact. On the other hand, since LOX is a very cold liquid it tends to quench most possible ignition sources that could cause promoted ignition. When examining oxygen equipment at lower pressures the primary concern is the increased ignition and fire concern with combustible non-metals.
This SAE Aerospace Information Report provides a general discussion on gaseous breathing oxygen and oxygen equipment for use on commercial aircraft. Other types of oxygen systems are mentioned to assist in this discussion. For detailed information on systems other than gaseous, refer to the appropriate section of AIR825.
Electric vehicle batteries typically require a tradeoff between safety and energy density. If the battery has high energy and power density — required for uphill driving or merging on the freeway — then there is a chance the battery can catch fire or explode in the wrong conditions. But materials that have low energy/power density, and therefore high safety, tend to have poor performance. There is no material that satisfies both.
Hydrogen as a clean, renewable alternative to fossil fuels is part of a sustainable-energy future; however, lingering concerns about flammability have limited widespread use of hydrogen as a power source for electric vehicles. Hydrogen vehicles can refuel much more quickly and go farther without refueling than today’s electric vehicles, which use battery power. But one of the final hurdles to hydrogen power is securing a safe method for detecting hydrogen.
Research and development work to solve an excessive noise problem created by an EV’s battery fast charger has led to advances in thermal management, heat dissipation, and reduced fire risks. D2H Advanced Technologies, a UK-based specialist engineering company, found that the noise occurred during the vehicle’s fast-charge cycles. It was caused by high pumping-power requirements for the coolant, essential to dissipate battery heat. Its OEM customer satisfied, D2H shifted its research focus directly to the thermal demands of series production lithium-ion batteries.
This Aerospace Information Report provides a general discussion on gaseous breathing oxygen and oxygen equipment for use on commercial aircraft. Other types of oxygen systems are mentioned to assist in this discussion. For detailed information on systems other than gaseous, reference the appropriate section of AIR825.
Texas A&M professor Jaime Grunlan and his team are developing a new flame-retardant coating using renewable, nontoxic materials readily found in nature that could provide effective fire protection for several widely used materials.
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) seeks to license its Advanced Fire Retardant Materials to industry. KSC’s scientists have developed processes and know-how to impart fire retardancy to common polymers such as nylons, polyesters, and acrylics. NASA developed this technology for use in personnel protective systems for launch pad personnel engaged in hazardous materials (HAZMAT) operations. The invention provides polymer blends containing polyhydroxyamide and one or more flammable polymers. The polymer blends are flame-retardant and have improved durability and heat stability compared to the flammable polymer portion of the blends.
The scope of this document is to provide a list of documents of types pertaining to the effects of oxygen on ignition and combustion of materials. Consolidating these references in one place makes it easier to find documents of this type as these references are difficult to locate.
The regenerative blower provides air flow through structures or systems that have relatively high flow resistance. Specifically, the regenerative blower was designed to provide a flow of ventilation gas through a spacesuit and its portable life support system (PLSS). Since the ventilation gas is primarily oxygen, fire prevention is a critical design requirement.
The scope of this document is to provide a list of documents of types pertaining to the effects of oxygen on ignition and combustion of materials. Consolidating these references in one place makes it easier to find documents of this type as these references are difficult to locate.
The term "secondary polymer layered impregnated tile" ("SPLIT") denotes a type of ablative composite-material thermal- insulation tiles having engineered, spatially non-uniform compositions. The term "secondary" refers to the fact that each tile contains at least two polymer layers wherein endothermic reactions absorb considerable amounts of heat, thereby helping to prevent overheating of an underlying structure. These tiles were invented to afford lighter-weight alternatives to the reusable thermal-insulation materials heretofore variously used or considered for use in protecting the space shuttles and other spacecraft from intense atmospheric- entry heating. Tiles of this type could also be useful on Earth as relatively lightweight components of fire-retardant structures.
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