Nitrogen Purging of Battery Packs Experiencing Thermal Runaway

摘要

There is a potential risk that one of the may cells, within a battery pack, can have a flaw that results in an internal short that generates high enough heat to initiate combustion of that cell. While this situation unfortunately damages the battery pack, the situation can become much worse if the heat of combustion from that one cell ignites neighboring cells or modules. The invention of nitrogen purging is meant to be one of the tools used to arrest the thermal propagation to other cells or modules. The invention is to package a compressed Nitrogen Gas(N_2) cylinder 1 with the Battery Pack(s) 2. Once the controls detect a thermal event is underway, the control system will open a valve to start the flow of N_2.