National Research Council of Canada

Joel Perron

Dean MacNeil

Oltion Kodra

Steven Recoskie

Giulio Torlone

An apparatus and method for initiating thermal runaway in a battery cell are provided. The apparatus and method may be used in safety research of battery cells and packs to initiate thermal runaway. The apparatus comprises a resistive heating element for positioning in thermal contact with the battery cell for transferring heat to a region of the battery cell. An energy source is electrically coupled to the resistive heating element. A switch selectively forms a circuit to send a current pulse through the resistive heating element to generate a power pulse at the resistive heating element to heat the region of the battery cell for initiating thermal runaway. Alternatively, the heating element is heated and held at a predetermined temperature until thermal runaway is initiated. The heat generation rate may be designed to be comparable to that of an internal short circuit within a cell, which is much faster than many existing slow heating methods used to initiate thermal runaway.

Growing community of inventors

Ottawa, Canada

Joel Perron