Battery Safety and Engineering

This talk presents a spatially-resolved single-particle model that captures variations in solid stoichiometry, reaction current, and overpotential across electrode thickness while retaining low complexity. This formulation adds only two additional states per electrode. Simulation results show that our “SPMe+” reduces voltage prediction error by 65 to 90% (depending on profile) compared with a conventional SPMe, making it a valuable contribution to next-generation battery controls.

Evaluating the relative safety of new battery chemistries can be a challenge, particularly when TRL is at the laboratory scale. Ideally, battery safety should be evaluated using a variety of quantitative methodologies. This presentation will compare the safety performance of commercially available lithium-ion and sodium-ion cells using multiple methodologies with the goal of providing a framework for “criteria-based” safety assessments that consider multiple facets of battery safety.

Emergency discharge has been considered as an effective strategy to mitigate thermal runaway by reducing the state of charge (SOC), whereas substantial ambiguities remain due to the wide range of discharge rates beyond normal operation, complex coupling with electrochemistry, and competing effects from external heating. This talk focuses on recent experimental investigations of thermal runaway mitigation in a wide range of discharge and heating conditions.

Battery safety is often viewed as a chemistry, cell, or hardware challenge, yet many safety issues stem from system-level factors such as requirements, interfaces, diagnostics, validation gaps, and overlooked use cases. Effective safety requires a systems engineering approach across the product lifecycle, combining prevention, mitigation, validation, and fleet learning. Hardware is essential, but battery safety is ultimately achieved through integrated risk management across the battery, vehicle, and external factors.