085 - E-mobility and energy storage hazards with Adam Barowy

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 0:00

Hello everybody welcome to the Fire Science Show. It has been a, quite a long time since we last had an episode about battery fires and. The batteries have not went anywhere. They're still in the focus of interest of the fire safety community. so yeah, about the time to fix this and I have a battery episode for you. This time I have invited Dr. Adam Barowy from UL. FSRI. Whose expertise is in testing e-mobility devices, hoverboards, scooters, and batteries used in such types of devices, but also in storage systems, in energy storage systems, residential nerdy, storage systems. And of course, as a part of UL, FSRI he has excellent experience in. Fire testing this things in values. Interesting setups, including residential setups garages. And, and similar. So far in the show we've talked about, Chemistry of batteries and overall risks related to battery systems, but we haven't really placed them within the. Environment of a residential unit or. Civilian garage. That, really changes the fire dynamics and really changes the risks related to batteries. This episode is also a way for me to atone for my. A little fear-mongering I've done in Poland that are related to the risks of e-mobility devices and fires of such. So there's a lot of knowledge, a lot of information in here that helps you understand when such a device is used safely operated safely. And when it's not. How to protect yourself. What's your best chances to do when you have such a device? and generally understand what are the hazards related? Two such fires. and uh, i end lasting sending between you and this great episode. so let's move me away let's spin the intro and jump into the episode This podcast is produced in partnership with OFR Consultants and multi award-winning UK base, fire and risk consultancy. OFR are supporting a number of PhDs at the universities around the UK, including Edinburgh in Sheffield. And the one I would like to highlight today is the opportunity at the Fire Safety Engineering Group at the University of Greenwich. This PhD is about how can we harness the power of BIM in our engineering practice? You may recall episode 62 about BIM. It seems like a promising, useful tool. And then the development in that is much welcomed for the fire community. The PhD will use computational tools like fire models and evacuation tools. And will examine the data exchange requirements for them to be used together in one digital workflow, employing BIM, if you would like to participate in this fully funded PhD bursary. Please check the episode, show notes. You can find there more information, link to the application. Important thing is the date it's closing on 28th, February, 2023. So yeah, please check it out. And now back to the episode with Adam.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 3:31

Hello everybody. Welcome to Fire Science Show. I'm today here with Adam Barowy from UL FSRI. Hey Adam. Great to have you.

Adam Barowy: 3:37

Hello.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 3:38

Nice, nice to meet you, and I'm very happy to have you on the show. And the topic of today's discussion is, uh, lithium may batteries. I've been told there's no other person in the world that has burned as many batteries as you I wonder if that, I wonder if that is true, but maybe let, let's start with, how it began for you. When, when did you, um, start burning batteries for living?

Adam Barowy: 4:00

I was working at, uh, underwriters Laboratories Research and Development Group, which kind of handles, uh, all the different new and innovative type challenges that that come to Underwriters Laboratories. the first types of products we started working on were hoverboards. There was kind of a, um, O overnight development of a hazard that, that arrived, I think with, uh, with the holidays when hoverboards were gifted quite a lot. And so UL responded by doing some demonstrations, of some of the potential hazards of hoverboards and then developing a product safety standard. was that? Sorry. Uh, was about, uh, 2016.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 4:32

and these hover birds are very disappointing. They don't hover at all. they have wheels,

Adam Barowy: 4:37

Right. And I, I still haven't tried one myself. I, I saw some of the lab techs try them and I decided, I, I need to my brains so yeah. that was actually kind of interesting because, you know, we were sort of a, a general purpose. Research and development group. we tend to work on problems that I, I think I've seen you're more familiar with, like fire resistance, fire modeling, and, and supportive of the business. But since we demonstrated some capability to know what we're doing in testing battery products, that led to more and more opportunities. And so, I, I know that within the span of about three months in my own career, I went from working on a diverse set of topics to only testing batteries. and it's been that way for, for years, uh, which has led to a lot of excitement.

, Wojciech Wegrzynski: 5:19

so what was so interesting in the, in the hover boards um, as a fire threat, was there a lot of incidents with them or it was just a new unknown that that has, uh, appeared and no one knew what to do with them?

Adam Barowy: 5:30

Yeah, it was, it was the rate of incidents that were occurring in North America that, you know, whether that's sensationalized or driven by the data, UL will respond to that and, make an effort to, sort of tie up that safety gap. And so, what we were seeing, in fact, one of the technicians in my group is a, he's a part-time firefighter nearby, and the very week that we started working on hoverboards, he responded to a house fire where a single mother had, given her son's hoverboards

for Christmas and about 3: 5:58

00 AM uh, one of them was charging and went into thermal runaway. And specific hazard of those, hover boards was that when the battery pack went into thermal run, the cells would tend to eject from the casing and sort of create like, you know, manyfold ignition sources in one room. And so this, this amazing woman grabbed a fire extinguisher, a dry chemical fire extinguisher and managed to chase all of these cells and put them out and stop her house from burning down. So it's this great case study very early on, but this is what was occurring, uh, and. There really was no, uh, regulation or safety standards for hover boards. And so that was an area we were, UL as a whole was able to respond pretty quickly and, uh, kind of close that safety gap. but before, before we started the show, I, I thought it'd be interesting. I took an inventory of all the lithium mine products that I. uh, in my own home, and I, I lost count at about 21, um, And so of those 21, you know, there's varying degrees of safety. They're, they're not all as well developed as hoverboards. And, and I don't yet have, any immobility devices, but, they may come one day And so, know, I think that the, the. Interesting thing is how many different types of products now that you find lithium-ion batteries in and where one type of product may have a lot of engineering around it and become much more safe. All of a sudden, new products where batteries didn't exist in them, you know, last year now, now they exist and that industry's not have the institutional knowledge of other industries, and so they're sort of back closer to zero in terms of.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 7:33

I had an episode about, of this podcast with, Anya Bolinghouse Hoffman. And, she's, uh, working in Germany on fire safety of, of vehicles, of buses. And we were discussing how different the safety regulations for buses are from the train. Industry like comp two, you would think it's very similar things in terms of interior of the vehicle and the material choices. I, I mean our mine is the drive train and the trucks, it's the same thing essentially. and, and yet the differences are, vast, like two completely different industries with two completely different sets of standards, I guess. In the world of lithium batteries is, is the same. Some products are, investigated, safeguarded, certified, and have to go through a very painful route of, of being approved to, to the market and, and go on. And I guess from this you could expect a higher safety margin. . And for some of this, it's, it's just another battery. You know, I like, in your flashlight, for example, I have a flashlight with large, I lithium, uh, single cell . It's a massive, massive cell. And I'm not sure if there's any safety in this, in this flashlight. Uh, and I would never expect a very significant engineering. But then if I see a video, This type of cell being, crushed or, or, you know, kneeled through with, with needle, it is a significant fire threat. So, out, out of this 21, uh, items you ha have at your home, which of those you would feel are at this higher end of, safety and, which you think are, are maybe overlooked?

Adam Barowy: 9:05

well, I know, I know for, for certain what's at the higher end of safety. Yeah. Uh, I've got a battery in my motorcycle that I know has been pretty rid, rigorously tested. Okay. the, the lead acid battery, and I know that they put it through abuse testing because of the relatively. Abusive environment of, uh, Okay. and then other very popular consumer electronics. So we know that the cell phone industry, for example, has suffered a lot of, uh, bad publicity from, from previous battery incidents. So, those types of products, we know the co the quality control of the cells is much higher. where I think that things are probably a little less safe are rapidly developed products. Um, so where you have something. Uh, maybe the company has not obviously been around for a while and may not obviously be around for a while, but they're sort of responding to this, you know, rapidly growing trend. So hoverboards were a great example. and now I think that New York City is an excellent example of, of how it's, it's, um, I'll call them e-mobility devices are scooters. I, I know that there's a lot of conflict with calling them e-bikes because there's an industry That that works around e-bikes. So you like pedal bikes, but with battery assist. That works very hard on safety. And they're sort of separate from these like delivery service oriented vehicles.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 10:22

I guess, that, that, that's something that we talk about, a lot lately. These e e-mobility devices everyone was focusing a lot on, on the, vehicles, like cars, Mm-hmm. uh, Carson on, on roads, Cars in tunnels, all aspects of how electric vehicles, how they behave in fires and It also was in a way, driven by the media attention. Uh, there was a lot of, a lot of media around that at some point. I, I feel that the turmoil is still there, but I think we are all a little bit more comfortable with, with, uh, these types of vehicles. I mean, we're learning them for sure. And I also have this feeling that, People are working on engineering them better now. these e-bikes, this, uh, e-mobility devices, uh, for me, they, they start to be, forefront of, treads related to lithium ion batteries or, or electromobility in general because people store them in, in their houses like when I, I, when I contemplate the fire of electric vehicle in a carpark, I mean, carpark is a fairly well, prepared place for, to hose the fire. they, they're usually, uh, secure if it's large carpark, they would have some detection systems, ventilation systems, maybe sprinklers. they, they. provide access and stuff like that. They're not full of people, I mean, it's obviously very bad thing to have a fire in a car park, but that's not the worst place to have a fire after all. And your living room is certainly a much worse place to, to have a fire. So you've mentioned you had some experiences with, with your firefighters that would work with you. I know UL is, is is very firefighter oriented institution that works with firefighters, uh, a lot. during your work on, on the batteries from these smaller devices, what were their views, like the firefighters views on this? Did, does this really change the firefighting environment?

Adam Barowy: 12:17

Yeah. It, it does. In I, I was thinking of all sorts of really exciting things I wanted to talk about, as you kind of went through that intro Yeah. one of the things that I think that we, we really need to do at F S R I that we're starting to do

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 12:30

Yeah.

Adam Barowy: 12:30

cover the fundamentals of how hazards. From lithium ion battery, thermal runaways. And so, um, when, when we were talking earlier, that's what I meant by, I'm finding the need to widen the scope of what we're studying a away from, know, specifically e-mobility or Hmm. energy storage Okay. the fundamentals. on how hazard scenarios develop from that. And so, if you've seen our webpage more recently, we just posted a project that's ongoing and it, it says it's about, uh, residential energy storage system explosion, hazards, and Hmm. but you won't see many, many batteries in that test. We we're releasing flammable gas. that represents what comes out of a battery in thermal runaway. and so that really is independent of what type of battery pack it comes from. Okay. so what we're trying, what we're trying to do with that type of research is better understand what size of battery pack will it take for fire dynamics to change inside a residential compartment. Okay. once some of the tests that we ran in June, we represented. Fuel loads inside a garage by just using group A commodity that you would use for sprinkler testing as plastic and cardboard. and then we included some tests with batteries and tests without batteries, and so we had baseline performance of an unventilated compartment fire. We simulate fire department arrival. We simulate the ventilation that they would perform, including some We, it was really, really fun. We used pyrotechnics to. sparking that the saw would create and going through the door and then, and in the case, the baseline case, sort of what I think most firefighters are going to expect to arrive to. You know, we, we simulate this cutting through the door and there's an unventilated compartment fire. It takes about 10 minutes. That with, with the size ventilation we created to get to a condition like flashover, in the tests that we included batteries, we did was we. Fire inside the commodity. We let that develop into an unventilated compartment fire, and then we forced thermal runaway in the batteries just to get this contribution of, unburned flammable gas coming out of these cells in a low oxygen condition and changing the flammability of that gas layer. And so then when we simulate this saw operat. With, sparking, we saw immediately that the smoke coming out around the edges of the garage door lit on fire. And as the vent is pulled open, the fire just immediately responds and gets much, much larger. and in, in one of those cases when we simulated thermal runaway, without starting a commodity fire, we managed to get a deflagration. So there was enough buildup Wow. from these thermal run. and we got a deflagration that that kind of, um, damaged our garage door and it sent a smoke plume about 70 feet horizontally across the lab. so that was part one of this big project that we've been running. And part two was we actually went and built a residential garage with real construction. Because we, we wanted to find out if that type of deflagration happened again, what would happen in a real residential structure? how would the hazards develop? Was the garage door gonna come flying off and down the driveway, or are the walls gonna bow out and potentially, injure a firefighter that's doing a, a size up the, of the, uh, incident? So, there's a lot of really fascinating details around that. But that project is, is essentially focused. how do, fire dynamics of residential structure fires change if there's battery packs involved, and how much battery pack has to be involved for that to happen?

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 15:51

Deflagration is not a scenario I would consider for a home, uh, or for residential, uh, uh, fire very often unless I have some gas sources. So that's, That's definitely a massive, uh, difference in the play field. so in, in your tests, it was both the, the, the battery was the primary item. Like you run thermal runaway and burn the batteries and see how the fire grows from that point, uh, but also a secondary item like it, it lies there and there's a fire happening. Around it. and what happens? was it only in like, garage settings? Uh, my, my biggest concern is when people are not living in, um, single unit households, they, they live in some sort of apartment buildings, you know, many flats around. They don't have the comfort of having a, a separate, um, room to, to keep your mobility devices. So, so, and, and you would still like to charge. Scooter for the next day. So, so you'd bring it home with you, like to the kitchen, to the residential, uh, room. have you tried anything like that?

Adam Barowy: 16:49

Uh, yes, actually. I was in the midst uh, moving and when, when we ran these tests, so I was unfortunately not able to attend. But, so FSRI ran some tests in the fall of 2022. and, uh, we, we have ranch style houses, which are pretty popular in North America, but they, they approximate the rough volume of a New York City apartment. Might, might be a bigger apartment, but we ran a case where there was a closed bedroom, uh, with an e-bike, and we ran another case where the e-bike is sort of between the front door and the living space. if you were in like a high rise apartment, it Yep. the living space and the exit. we, we talked about deflations, but when we were setting up these tests, we were not necessarily expecting deflations. We, we did put the instrumentation there to be able to measure the pressurized if we had them. But, in actually both of the, the first two tests, we had deflations that blew the windows out. Um, and this was from. thermal runaway going through the battery pack very quickly and releasing unburned gas. you would get this, you know, mixture of, of, uh, gas and vapors that sort of enveloped the e-bike. maybe the cloud volume is about the size of an overstuffed chair, but when that ignites, it's still produced enough pressure to rupture the building envelope. So it's, it is really remarkable. you know, those are in tests that we forced. But you know, back to this battalion chief I was talking to yesterday, he mentioned off the cuff when we were talking about this research that he'd recently run an incident where a homeowner was charging their scooter in a closet underneath their base stairs. so it was behind a closed door. And when, when that scooter went into the, a runaway, it caused that closet to explode. And so the homeowner thought someone was trying to break into the house. So he, he ran into his. you know, this is North America, so with his handgun, Okay, to, to see, to stop who was breaking into his house and discovered the fire and, and evacuated everyone safely. But, so we, we know these incidents are happening. There's, there's, uh, I'll, I guess I'll save the details, but we know of another incident where, there was an explosion in a high rise in New York City. They had really confused the arriving, fire crews because they thought that there was a big open floor plan, but in reality, it had, uh, blown down an interior wall inside the apartment before their arrival. it is happening, uh, and it is happening more with, you know, some, some products than others. So I think, you know, our focus is, as I mentioned, swinging towards the fundamentals and what we can. To address, especially for the fire service, what they can do about how these fundamental hazards are developing.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 19:17

So this, uh, type of deflation or vapor cloud explosion, uh, scenarios is, is this something you'd consider common, uh, in, this type of battery applications? I assume the mechanism would be that the, the battery goes into terminal runaway, the, cloud of vapor is, is released and then eventually it, it gets ignited uh, by the same source, by, by the thermal runaway. Or, or, or, or something. So, so you don't have this, jet fire that we usually see with, with, with cars, but, but more like a clouds that, that persists to explosion and then persist to a fire I would assume.

Adam Barowy: 19:50

Yeah, it, we, as we were talking about data earlier, I, I, it's hard to know how many of these incidents are happening. I have a short list of incidents where I suspect there was partial volume deflagration, you know, leading to the outcome of the incident. but we are hearing about more of them, and so I think I would just say it's very likely to occur where you have an instance of a sufficiently large, so maybe above one kilowatt hour battery pack where it goes into thermal runaway and releases gas without igniting, because that that gas and vapor mixture, is kind of remarkable. It, there's, it does come out of the battery very. But it tends to linger around the source. And Okay. there is finally a, you know, competent ignition source presented by maybe sparks from the cell or, or something else nearby, it tends to ignite that, that local cloud. And you get what can be a pretty significant partial volume deflation. So I'm, I'm reluctant to call them common because I don't Okay. to the, to the fear of lithium ion batteries. But, um, I think when you have this delayed ignition, they're, they're always possible.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 20:56

it's a very challenging scenario because it also leads to, to significant change in the, um, ventilation of the compartment

Adam Barowy: 21:03

Mm-hmm.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 21:04

uh, that promotes, flashover, uh, easier growth of the fire. So, so, so that's, that's very interesting. Given the size of these fires, like, uh, you've seen these fires, I've never seen, um, e-mobility um, device, uh, fire or one kilowatt, two kilowatt battery, uh, fire on my own. Actually, actually, I, I, I saw it once, but it was not, that one was not massive. But, but you've seen that in, in a compartment setting. Is there much a person can do when, when such a fire goes on in their home, like is it, is it possible to remove that device? Is it possible to take it over with a household extinguishing.

Adam Barowy: 21:39

sa sadly, I I don't think it's wise to advise anyone to try to do something about it after it started. Really, it may be, that the severity doesn't turn out to be what it could be. you know, after the Thermo Runaway started, but personally, if anyone asked me, I would not advise them to try and stay and fight that fire because of how rapidly they can grow. If, if you just do a little bit of searching on YouTube, you can Yeah. sorts of incidents of people that have their home security cameras, and you can see somewhere in that shot, um, their e-bike is on charge. and it's really alarming. There's, there's actually even worse, there's some, uh, videos and elevators, and of course that's a. scenario. but the toxicity of the smoke, in terms of traditional toxicity, I won't, I you know, address, specific chemicals like the benze and their, and their effects. But if you look at the yield of gases from unburned, uh, battery gas, you tend to see very high co. So, you know, up to 30 to 40% co. whereas your standard under ventilated compartment fire with, with typical fuels is maybe around six or 7% co. so the release of that gas can be very toxic in a closed, compartment. So I think it's just essential that people leave. the F D N Y, the fire Department of New York City, has partnered with us on developing some, some guidelines. And so we always refer to what they recommend you do if you have these devices. I mean, they recognize these are becoming essential for people's livelihood, especially in New York City. there's, Hmm. a whole economy around E-bikes now enabling jobs. so it, it kind of takes away someone's livelihood to say, you cannot have this. so what they've tried to do is, is create this compilation of, of things you can do. Like don't charge it between you and your path of egress. Uh, don't leave the charger unattended. Uh, make sure that the chargers from the original equipment manufacturer, are some battery pack safety standards that you should be looking for when you're, you know, buying battery packs. But, of, part of the challenge that. I feel a little bit is, you know, out of our reach as fire researchers is the socioeconomic system which drives that. so I, I'll just address it and say that that's a, that's a problem. But, um, it's not really something blowing up our ranch house with, uh, e-bikes can really solve right away.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 23:52

Yeah, of course. There, there, there are reasons why these, uh, types of vehicles are very popular and, I dunno if you, if you remember that, but, uh, some, I dunno, 20 years ago there was the secret meeting of billionaires who were presented with Segway device, uh, bill Gates and stuff, and they all came and said, the mobility will never look the same. And in the end, what we got is a chariot for security in shopping malls. And this, this, uh, revolution did not happen at all. Uh uh, but then again, we, we suddenly got a ton of, of, of simple mobility means that allow you trouble 10, 20, 30 kilometers actually enough to get to Your work environment and go back home, uh, without sweat, without, worrying quite quickly, fairly safely, very cheaply, easily. So, so indeed. It, it is doing some sort of revolution, silent revolution in the way how people, um, can move, especially in large cities. That also means that people are taking them together, uh, with them into buses, into, into metro, into, into offices, into waiting rooms. It's very interesting how it changes the landscape, but that's also why we are talking, in this podcast. It's not about everyone should, should ban, uh, e-mobility devices and then stay away because it's the devil's work. It's, it's about understanding them and, and finding ways. How can we live with them safely. my next question would be how big are these fire? I have recently, uh, attended a workshop by IFAB as an institute in Germany who are doing, uh, e-bike tests, uh, in, in their calorimeter. And if I'm not wrong, they've reached something like one megawatt within like one minute from the start of the fire. And, I thought that that's an interesting number. there's a very large fire developing very, very quickly. Like one megawatt under one minute. That's, quicker than ultra fast fire. Ultra fast is 75 seconds. Right.

Adam Barowy: 25:47

Uh,

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 25:48

that's, that's, that's crazy. What's your experience with, with burning these things?

Adam Barowy: 25:51

well, it's a, it's a pretty wide field, but the, the lesser engineered products, the ones that really I think have not quite taken consequences of a failure in mind, tend to have those very alarming growth rates. so, I'll give an example that's not quite immobility, but, when we were preparing for this, uh, series of tests in, in the garage Hmm. we talked about, We wanted to create a representation of a residential energy storage system, by simulating the construction. So we looked at some of the features and we said, well, we need some partitions inside to sort of limit propagation rates between cells. and we, we roughly simulated the same electrochemical capacity. so we ran these pre-tests where we said, does this, does this roughly approximate in terms of fire growth rate of what we're seeing when we test real residential product? we didn't want to test a real residential product because we can buy that and then put it in our research tests and make some manufacturer look horrible. And then our results are also tied to that one specific type of product. So, when we forced propagation in our sort of design 1.0, It was essentially just about 1500 of those e-cigarette, 18,650 style cells. There were some partitions, but, we, we achieved about seven megawatts within about 30 seconds, which is just truly Okay. we that's a lot. had so that's, I, Yes, I would say that that's something. that that would represent a potential fire growth, uh, hazard of a DIY energy storage system. You, you may see some of those, like on YouTube, you see, uh, instructions on how to pull all these cylindrical cells out of a well, and build your own. But, the e-bikes that we've been testing, uh, are, are on the order of what you said, maybe about a megawatt within 30 seconds to a minute. It, it can be very fast.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 27:37

That's very interesting. And, and, the, in the next iterations of your, uh, mockup, uh, energy storage system, did you achieve lesser, heat release rates? How, how did you improve that?

Adam Barowy: 27:46

uh, we did, we did. And so, we did that by essentially getting a little bit more detailed, investing more time in how we did all the partitioning. instead of having them sort of. All a conglomerated inside one enclosure. did, 30 cell packs, which are closer to like these, 100 amp hour cells that you might see sort of commercially available now. and actually their, their heat release rate and uh, sort of thermal runaway characteristics are kind of similar to what we've tested at, at about the a hundred amp hour scale. And I know, I know DK talked about that. kind of a, a, a popular, cell format. And, once we did that, what we saw not this, um, standard fire growth rate curve. I know you mentioned, you know, that it could be sort of like a T squared curve, but it's not necessarily a consistent growth rate. You may have the thermal runaway of an individual cell and then some heat propagates from that cell to those around it, and eventually you get another one. And so you get these very quick release. Of gas and then flaming, and so it looks almost kind of like a sawtooth heat release rate profile until eventually you get ignition of the whole unit and then it really kind of takes off and becomes like a typical heat release rate curve.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 28:56

did you ever try and measure, release, uh, the, the gas release velocity or the quantities of gas release? Uh, when, when a terminal runaway occurs? I, I was thinking like when I want to make the simulation of a battery fire scenario in any setting, I have the full capability to introduce energy at whatever rate I want and and produce gases at whatever rate I want. That's not a problem. I can do one megawatt 30 seconds. Not a problem. My worry came from the fact that this. initial release has a certain kinetic energy to it. I mean, it's not anymore, uh, you know, a free burning item. It's not anymore a buoyant plume on its own. it acts differently in the physics. It has inertia in in the gases. It has velocity. Have, have you ever tried to quantify these, uh, features of this flows?

Adam Barowy: 29:48

um, I, I don't know if this will answer your question perfectly, yes. in, in two different ways. So, in the way that I think you're speaking about more directly, the velocity of that gas coming outta the product is gonna depend entirely on the enclosure design. So in a more open rack that you might have with an energy storage system, the gas velocity coming outta the cell may be very, and then slow by the time it's kind of coming out of the rack, it may be sort of buoyancy driven by that point. Okay. we, when we tested some EV enclosures some years ago, there's sort of this test where you expose them to a pool fire and pull the pool fire away. the EV battery packs tend to be very tightly enclosed, and so the, so the, the electrical connectors would melt out and turn into these, you know, sort of like rocket nozz. Mm-hmm. video that we internally refer to as the fire mustache, cuz it looks like a mustache, but there's these flames, jetting, maybe seven feet out the sides. And so that's very high velocity. we've found more meaningful is in, doing measurements of what kinds of gas come out, and what Okay. volumes come out. And that's, uh, that's really more focused for energy storage systems. So if you're designing, if you're a fire protection engineer, design, safety features of a containerized energy storage system, you need to know, what the flammability characteristics or explosive characteristics are of that gas. So that comes from knowing what its, uh, closed vessel deflagration pressure are, what its burning velocity is, uh, and how much of it comes out. You have to make some assumptions about rate. Um, so you might have to Mm-hmm. And we worked with a, we worked with Bob Zalo on a. where he proposes a model for how you can just do a very simple sort of exponential decay. so you have this kind of like step release and then exponential decay. Okay, it, it goes into determining, what types of deflagration vents that you put on an enclosure if you take a different path, um, the requirements for your exhaust system to sort of detect the gases and then activate very quickly and exhaust whatever compartment that you're, uh, concerned about.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 31:48

so, so. It's not just, uh, related to the technology of the cell itself, but also the enclosure in which the cell is, uh, contained. And, uh, eventual safety features like release valves and adding connectors, any openings in this enclosure will drive. Okay, that, that makes sense. You release a lot of gas in, uh, in an en close space area. It has to ventilate somewhere. you've mentioned energy storage systems, uh, a lot. And, uh, as, as you've said before, you. Quickly transitioned from being the, the hover by guy into someone testing the, the storage systems. I wonder what type of tests does one go through to, uh, to certify an energy storage system and, and prove that it is safe? H how does, uh, how does you test this type of devices?

Adam Barowy: 32:35

So, uh, we, we developed a standard called UL 95 40 a. Uh, it's, it's now an anti, standard. It's by national, so it's a consensus based standard. and that's, the test that we use to, evaluate the fire and explosion characteristics of a energy storage system that can have thermal runaway. So Mm. off the bat is determine at the cell. if that product can have thermal runaway. There are kind of some amazing products that are not lithium ion chemistries that, that don't have thermal runaways.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 33:04

Okay.

Adam Barowy: 33:05

so then we'll proceed as, as you just kind of, uh, alluded to, to a level where you're testing a battery pack, maybe a module, and that that helps you understand propagation rate, and the amount of gas that can come off from propag. And then we go up from module level to unit level and look at thermal runaway propagation from module to module, uh, within an enclosed rack, uh, or I should say within a, a, a single rack. And then if needed, we can go all the way up to, uh, testing a container which has got fire protection features like, like pressure relief fence or sprinkler systems. What. so what's really interesting is we, we ourselves at, at ul I should say my, my colleagues now at, uh, the for-profit Hmm. of ul, we still are not able to certify the complete fire and explosion safety of an energy storage system. So right now what people do is they run this, test and they get a, a data report that can be used by an. to design a, a safety system. And then that has to Okay. evaluated by an so certification would certainly, uh, simplify that process, but we're not quite there because, uh, we and some others believe that we need a couple more tests to completely evaluate the explosion hazard side.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 34:17

And, and, how, how do you initiate the, the failure in, in this test? I mean, you, you have to initiate somehow. You overcharge, you overheat, you, you nail them.

Adam Barowy: 34:27

we know there are many different product designs. So for example, the, we, we feel the best way is, is to go by heating. but if someone delivers us a product where all the cells are welded together and you cannot get a heater in there, you may need to use a different method to achieve thermo runaway. so our standard is written. the heating of the cells is really what causes the thermal runaway of that, that one or more cells. But if you sort of read between the lines of the standard, the point is establish what happens, how much hazard is developed when propagation happens. So we're really happy with, uh, any methodology can reveal whether or not there will be propagation, because that's really when the consequences start to develop and that's what you need to design a fire protection system to.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 35:13

By, by propagation you mean cell to cell?

Adam Barowy: 35:15

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's correct. Yep.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 35:17

And, does the state of charge be important in this test or in, in, in your case? Uh, you, you just have a certain value which you test them with.

Adam Barowy: 35:26

Yeah, absolutely. we, we require it to be 100% state of charge, cuz that's essentially how you get the most severe thermal runaway. There's some good research by University of Maryland that shows that it sort of doesn't really matter after about 75% state of charge, Okay. um, it, it allows us to consistently evaluate, uh, all products across the board.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 35:45

And in your research into the, the threats caused by, uh, battery systems, were you also simulating scenarios where, uh, something would be overcharged or, or you just assume a fire happens from thermal runaway and you simulate the thermal runaway?

Adam Barowy: 36:00

Well, yeah. So the, the, it's the propagation of thermal runaway from cell to cell that really drives whatever the end hazard is. training module that I mentioned that, that we're working on at F Sri, We're sort of hoping it'll be out by the end of the month, addresses these five different types of scenarios that can happen from propagating thermo runaway. So batteries are essentially, to me they're, they're like a gas leak, so they're leaking this flammable gas. If that ignites, it could be a fire if it accumulates. It can be an explosion hazard, and it can kind of be anywhere in between. You can have a fire that burns in this battery pack and then consumes all the oxygen in a. the batteries keep propagating and now you sort of have this, extra flammable gas layer that's now accumulated in this room. And that's of, kind of, uh, similar. I dunno if you heard about the explosion, which occurred in surprise, Arizona with the EM energy storage system. That's kind of similar to what occurred in Surprise Arizona. This this accumulation of Hmm. and when first responders arrived and, and opened the door to this structure, you know, enabled this exchange of those gases with. created a flammable mixture. So remarkable to me how complicated the large scale fire dynamics can become.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 37:09

I really love how you take a very, very complicated issue of, uh, of a battery fire and just, you know, cut it into manageable pieces like, not worrying about how thermal runaway happens, but figuring out what happens from that point. And, uh, I guess there, there, there's a lot of people working in battery safety who, who focus only on, on how it happens that the thermal runaway happens and, and they can, fuel your, uh, your data with, with the probabilities and stuff and you can focus on the gas releases and, uh, and the consequences of the fire side. I really appreciate this, this

Adam Barowy: 37:44

way. I'm really, uh, kind of excited cuz uh, you've had the guests on your show already. I've, I listened to, you know, Mr Restuccia uh, podcast episode with you. and I'm very appreciative of the work they do because, you know, essentially what I'm, what I'm trying to do with F S R I is integrate all of that phenomenal research into. accessible understanding of how hazards develop. And, you know, sort of selfishly, this was something I had to do, in order to do safe testing of products. There's one, one very specific test we ran. a, it was a energy storage system. We put in our large scale facility that weighed about 25,000 pounds. it was really, really big. And so our first success was convincing our eh, h s department that we could run this test but it required, breaking down all these hazards and how they develop and making this giant flow chart that we kept on the table during the test. And we said, these are all our termination conditions. When the hazards may become too much for the. and we have to shut this test down. and so that kind of was a spark that, that, that one test where we said, wow, we can really map out how these hazards develop and we should be doing it because it helps us to perform testing more safely. And then that turned into, well, maybe we can turn this into like a guide for first responders or, or a guide for other people to better understand how these hazards can start to develop. And maybe from there we can get to better decisions on you put your E-bike, for example, but is it between you and your front door? Or maybe you do something a little less risky?

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 39:14

When, when fire scientists start to worry about the integrity of a fire lab while doing experiment, that's the, that's the point where the public should be little concerned with the scale of threats we we're talking about. But, uh, yeah, I, I've, I've been there, done that, uh, had tested that, we're, we were very scared about the lab, but actually, as, as you said, it's interesting by solving the, issues with, with carrying the tests, by understanding the threats that are for. Oh, you need, uh, you start to develop a better understanding a consumer of the product and, and maybe some of these safety guidances for, for yourself can be useful for, for someone on outside, right.

Adam Barowy: 39:53

Yeah, absolutely. Oh, so I've been patiently waiting for my moment to strike. Uh, I'm not a risk person, but, uh, something that I've really just so continuously that, you know, we we're a very basic understanding of risk is, uh, the frequency times the, the severity. You know, you've got this standard, matrix and I think the battery industry, especially for energy storage, but, but really every. Has worked really hard on reducing the frequency of battery incidents, uh, and only, I think recently. And, and through the creation of standards like NFP 8 55, the, the Energy Storage System, uh, safety Standard and, and some of our UL standards, it makes manufacturers more aware that some of these consequences are possible. And so then they're, they're designed 2.0 or they're designed three point. Starts to really incorporate more safety features that lessen the severity of some of those consequences. And that's where I, I feel, the most personal gratification that I know we've had some success by seeing when there's an incident that occurs, the severity is, you know, manageable. and test I mentioned in our large scale fire lab, we ended redoing that test, years later. And achieved the result they were looking for, but still had a very large fire. that was really great because it meant that their separation distances, uh, and their other safety features prevented one unit from, you know, causing the whole loss of this energy storage, you know, installation. It's, really, uh, been very exciting to watch this, you know, development.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 41:22

f for the end. One more question about limiting the severity, and we, we've talked it briefly, uh, before the recording, but the, the role of, of sprinklers, residential sprinklers in this, uh, threats. do you have an experience to what extent a residential sprinkler can contain, uh, fire that starts at, e-mobility device

Adam Barowy: 41:41

Um,

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 41:42

small?

Adam Barowy: 41:42

not, not personal experience, but yeah. as luck would have at this incident I was talking about, uh, with this, uh, battalion chief from Virginia yesterday. he mentioned that the residential sprinkler was able to hold this closet fire in check until the fire department arrived. So the, the scooter fire had not overwhelmed that sprinkler. But, in our follow up e-bike tests that we're looking to, to plan to run this this spring, we wanna look at some studies where we place an e-bike with other furnishings and do the e-bike is the first dyna. And also do the e-bike as the second item ignited and see if the, the residential sprinklers are able to contain those types of scenarios.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 42:21

Uh, I think that's very interesting research. And have you ever looked into, storage systems for, uh, e-mobility devices? You know, like in Netherlands for example, they would have these endless, car parks for, for, or bike parks for, for bicycles and, small devices. And in Poland, also in modern skyscrapers, we have these places where people can keep their mobility devices. I wonder what type of safety systems we should start designing for

Adam Barowy: 42:46

those. it's, it's interesting, I've come up with some great engineering ideas that, uh, are, are not attractive to the people that actually own these devices. but, the way we store propane tanks in these outside caged units, you know, I think that that's, that gets you your separation. It may get you your containment. But there's, interestingly enough, there's a industry that's responding to some of these hazards. so it's sort of like flammable liquid storage cabinets painted a different color. So it's, uh, you know, battery appropriate, like blue or green. and they're marketed for, storing, uh, you know, so power tool packs or e-bike batteries, whatever fits inside the shelving. And so there's been a lot of requests for UL to develop a standard for these cabinets or these contain.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 43:28

Oh, that's very

Adam Barowy: 43:30

interesting. Yeah. and we know that it's needed because, so we, we ran some demonstration tests to say, well, is there a real hazard there? And ab absolutely, we blew the door off the cabinet. We tested, in the first try, So we, Hmm. that it's needed. There would need to be some advanced, you know, safety features to contain whatever occurs inside. But, yeah, I think it's, that would solve such a huge part of the problem.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 43:50

So, uh, maybe you, you have final message or, or, uh, one thing that would, you would like people to, uh, remember from this interesting episode.

Adam Barowy: 43:59

sure. Yeah. I, I think, uh, as someone that's now trying to, better understand the, the hazards at a, at a higher level to, to develop this fundamental guidance for how. Battery hazards develop in all these different types of places where you might have a power bank inside a, uh, overhead compartment inside a plane, Hmm. um, or where you may have a battery thermo runaway inside a closed energy storage unit. I think that if we have that type of information and we can tie together all this fantastic research from all around the globe and the other guests that have been on your show, we can, we can have a better understanding. for how to respond to types of battery incidents for how we use our batteries. And you know, I think the, the goal is to better understand every time you're deploying some product with a battery, be aware of those hazards. Be aware of how you're using it. and you can actually have some impact on reducing your own risk drivers. So whether that's reducing the, the likelihood you're going to have a thermal run. or reducing the consequences of if you do have a thermo runaway. But I agree with your, your previous episodes that I don't think we need to, you know, run in fear from lithium ion batteries. We need to understand them so we can do just as we have with every other, you know, pop-up fire hazard that has occurred over 100 years of, you know, fire research. to, you know, make sure that we mitigate it and we move on. And, you know, next, next time it'll be, uh, hopefully it's microgravity space hazards as we all move to Marsh

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 45:23

Uh, I must say I'm not very proud, but I may be, uh, responsible for a little fear mongering, uh, about e-mobility devices in Poland now, but, I, I really feel that having this type of hazard at residential, setting, which is not ready for a fire. , I wonder is there any, uh, any guidance or any advice we could give to consumers of, of immobility devices who, who want to purchase one and would like to ensure maximum safety of, of, of that? Is, is there any good advice we could give to, to people

Adam Barowy: 45:55

Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and the, uh, the disclaimer is, you know, please visit FD and Y's, guidelines for, for using and, and buying and storing these Fantastic. case I miss them. just to rattle them off quickly, to try and buy products which, which have been third party evaluated, you know, UL or others, to use the same charger, not some aftermarket charger, uh, charge them attended. So don't leave them unattended and charging. Um, charge them inside the, uh, environmental conditions that they say they're supposed to be for. So not too hot, not too cold. and, also be mindful of where you're storing them. Don't store them near other combustibles and don't just store them between yourself and your means of egress. Um, those are the top ones, but you know, as I mentioned, those, those guidelines are fantastic and, and they'll be added to as, as we continue to do research with our partners.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 46:42

Oh, that's fantastic. that helps me a lot. I'll spread this, uh, in Poland for sure. And, uh, hopefully I'll be a little less, uh, worried about fear mongering. Something that sometimes a little, a little bit of fear mongering is, is necessary, uh, for, for people to, to catch up and,

Adam Barowy: 46:58

uh, it's, it's good motivation, you know? I think it's natural to have.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 47:02

Yeah, I, I, I feel obligated for safety of, of my colleagues and other people in here. And, uh, I guess you working in, in such an institutions, you also feel this obligation towards the society that, when the giant fire comes, we should have seen that. Uh, so nowadays, I, this feeling, you know, whenever I see so, Me as a fire professional, uh, I feel that something is risky. I, I, I should rather act and communicate, because if, if something bad happens in a way, it's, it's in my fault a little bit as well. So, yeah, that, that's the mindset. But, uh,

Adam Barowy: 47:38

I, I love the personal responsibility. I mean, I think that's what drives many of us in this industry.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 47:42

Adam, thank you, uh, so much. It was a huge pleasure to talk, about the e-mobility devices, storage systems and, and other, um, aspects of, of lithium mine battery safety. I'm very happy to see how this space evolves and grows and, uh, move towards safety in general. It's, it's, it's been a. Pleasure to observe how this in industry resonates with feedback. How, how it develops new strategies, and I guess you said you started in 2016. Something you can see a progress in in this industry for sure. Right.

Adam Barowy: 48:14

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There, there is, uh, there's absolutely been progress and, it, it's in the major industries and as I mentioned, every time a new use of batteries pops up, you, you, you witnessed sort of the, the same pattern. it, it is truly remarkable.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 48:28

Yeah. And, uh, let's hope this, uh, growth continues. Thank you, Adam. And, and yeah, have a great day. See you around.

Adam Barowy: 48:35

Okay. Thank you very much for this opportunity and, and I really had fun talking to you.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 48:39

And that's it. Thank you for listening. I hope you've enjoyed this talk. Actually, we were both ill during the recording. I had some flu. Adam had some flu. I hope you cannot tell. The magical fat sound, mastering and editing. And I'm really happy with toughtened it out. And we produced this episode is jam packed with information. I thought that was very, very interesting. I highly admire, how they can, the couple, the threats of lithium-ion batteries to find surrogate ways. To, um, work around this hazards and test them. It's very difficult, you know, to burn real stuff like batteries. It's. not easy. It's expensive. So finding surrogate ways, like the ones that Adam as shown in the episode is a brilliant way because we need to study them. We need to study the consequences. And not always to study the consequences. You have to really have a thermal runaway or really have a real battery burning. There it's enough. If you know what such fire can do. And then. Measure this consequences. It's brilliant. As a fire scientist. I really, really appreciate that. So, um, that's it for today. I hope you've enjoyed this episode. As usual, thank you to the sponsor of the podcast or for consultants for helping me produce this thing. Before we end. One thing I wanted to bring your attention to on Monday published a Q and a episode, answering the questions from the listener experience survey. It was amazing to hear all the feedback from you. If you have not heard the QA2. I have a lot of comments about the show, the future of the show. the partnership and other things around the production of the podcast. So if you're interested in the podcast itself, uh, the Q and a too is a good episode for you. And if you're here just for the great uh, interviews with fantastic guests, please join me next Wednesday and other episodes coming your way. This time. Another one in the series of episodes that changed fire science, which seems to be fan favorite. So I hope you will like that a lot as well. See you there. Bye.