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

Transcript

WEBVTT 00:00:00.599 --> 00:00:02.339 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Hello everybody welcome to the Fire Science Show. 00:00:02.549 --> 00:00:06.990 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>It has been a, quite a long time since we last had an episode about battery fires and. 00:00:07.108 --> 00:00:09.390 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>The batteries have not went anywhere. 00:00:09.390 --> 00:00:13.942 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>They're still in the focus of interest of the fire safety community. 00:00:14.016 --> 00:00:18.486 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>so yeah, about the time to fix this and I have a battery episode for you. 00:00:18.846 --> 00:00:20.806 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>This time I have invited Dr. 00:00:20.806 --> 00:00:22.556 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Adam Barowy from UL. 00:00:22.556 --> 00:00:23.306 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>FSRI. 00:00:23.885 --> 00:00:39.606 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>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. 00:00:40.176 --> 00:00:45.786 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>And of course, as a part of UL, FSRI he has excellent experience in. 00:00:46.176 --> 00:00:49.295 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Fire testing this things in values. 00:00:49.805 --> 00:00:53.975 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Interesting setups, including residential setups garages. 00:00:54.636 --> 00:00:55.896 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>And, and similar. 00:00:56.101 --> 00:01:05.825 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>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. 00:01:06.072 --> 00:01:08.862 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Environment of a residential unit or. 00:01:09.582 --> 00:01:10.903 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Civilian garage. 00:01:11.352 --> 00:01:16.748 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>That, really changes the fire dynamics and really changes the risks related to batteries. 00:01:17.319 --> 00:01:21.129 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>This episode is also a way for me to atone for my. 00:01:21.213 --> 00:01:27.664 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>A little fear-mongering I've done in Poland that are related to the risks of e-mobility devices and fires of such. 00:01:27.993 --> 00:01:37.716 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>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. 00:01:37.716 --> 00:01:38.496 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>And when it's not. 00:01:39.367 --> 00:01:40.986 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>How to protect yourself. 00:01:41.016 --> 00:01:43.807 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>What's your best chances to do when you have such a device? 00:01:44.263 --> 00:01:48.194 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>and generally understand what are the hazards related? 00:01:48.243 --> 00:01:49.084 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Two such fires. 00:01:49.388 --> 00:01:52.927 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>and uh, i end lasting sending between you and this great episode. 00:01:52.927 --> 00:02:26.513 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>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. 00:02:26.790 --> 00:02:32.750 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>OFR are supporting a number of PhDs at the universities around the UK, including Edinburgh in Sheffield. 00:02:33.229 --> 00:02:39.530 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>And the one I would like to highlight today is the opportunity at the Fire Safety Engineering Group at the University of Greenwich. 00:02:40.050 --> 00:02:45.193 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>This PhD is about how can we harness the power of BIM in our engineering practice? 00:02:45.462 --> 00:02:47.802 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>You may recall episode 62 about BIM. 00:02:48.103 --> 00:02:51.013 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>It seems like a promising, useful tool. 00:02:51.013 --> 00:02:55.812 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>And then the development in that is much welcomed for the fire community. 00:02:56.018 --> 00:03:00.563 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>The PhD will use computational tools like fire models and evacuation tools. 00:03:00.563 --> 00:03:14.531 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>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. 00:03:14.770 --> 00:03:16.931 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Please check the episode, show notes. 00:03:17.237 --> 00:03:20.627 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>You can find there more information, link to the application. 00:03:20.807 --> 00:03:25.907 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Important thing is the date it's closing on 28th, February, 2023. 00:03:26.237 --> 00:03:27.798 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So yeah, please check it out. 00:03:28.307 --> 00:03:30.228 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>And now back to the episode with Adam. 00:03:31.001 --> 00:03:31.661 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Hello everybody. 00:03:31.751 --> 00:03:33.191 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Welcome to Fire Science Show. 00:03:33.191 --> 00:03:36.270 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I'm today here with Adam Barowy from UL FSRI. 00:03:36.371 --> 00:03:36.850 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Hey Adam. 00:03:36.850 --> 00:03:37.390 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Great to have you. 00:03:37.543 --> 00:03:38.063 <v Adam Barowy>Hello. 00:03:38.688 --> 00:03:41.899 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Nice, nice to meet you, and I'm very happy to have you on the show. 00:03:41.899 --> 00:03:45.776 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And the topic of today's discussion is, uh, lithium may batteries. 00:03:46.086 --> 00:03:56.286 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:03:56.286 --> 00:03:59.795 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>When, when did you, um, start burning batteries for living? 00:04:00.135 --> 00:04:09.806 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:04:10.389 --> 00:04:13.269 <v Adam Barowy>the first types of products we started working on were hoverboards. 00:04:13.269 --> 00:04:21.466 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:04:21.663 --> 00:04:28.516 <v Adam Barowy>And so UL responded by doing some demonstrations, of some of the potential hazards of hoverboards and then developing a product safety standard. 00:04:29.120 --> 00:04:29.511 <v Adam Barowy>was that? 00:04:29.511 --> 00:04:29.901 <v Adam Barowy>Sorry. 00:04:30.059 --> 00:04:32.382 <v Adam Barowy>Uh, was about, uh, 2016. 00:04:32.767 --> 00:04:34.507 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>and these hover birds are very disappointing. 00:04:34.507 --> 00:04:35.557 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>They don't hover at all. 00:04:35.692 --> 00:04:36.423 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>they have wheels, 00:04:37.088 --> 00:04:37.648 <v Adam Barowy>Right. 00:04:37.648 --> 00:04:39.608 <v Adam Barowy>And I, I still haven't tried one myself. 00:04:39.608 --> 00:04:44.973 <v Adam Barowy>I, I saw some of the lab techs try them and I decided, I, I need to my brains so yeah. 00:04:45.072 --> 00:04:48.927 <v Adam Barowy>that was actually kind of interesting because, you know, we were sort of a, a general purpose. 00:04:49.867 --> 00:04:50.747 <v Adam Barowy>Research and development group. 00:04:50.860 --> 00:04:58.002 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:04:58.163 --> 00:05:05.577 <v Adam Barowy>But since we demonstrated some capability to know what we're doing in testing battery products, that led to more and more opportunities. 00:05:05.637 --> 00:05:14.456 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:05:14.576 --> 00:05:19.086 <v Adam Barowy>and it's been that way for, for years, uh, which has led to a lot of excitement. 00:05:19.173 --> 00:05:30.396 <v , Wojciech Wegrzynski>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? 00:05:30.475 --> 00:05:42.773 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:05:42.833 --> 00:05:58.300 <v Adam Barowy>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 00:05:58.300 --> 00:06:02.781 <v for Christmas and about 3>00 AM uh, one of them was charging and went into thermal runaway. 00:06:02.920 --> 00:06:14.778 <v for Christmas and about 3>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. 00:06:14.958 --> 00:06:23.298 <v for Christmas and about 3>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. 00:06:23.507 --> 00:06:28.778 <v for Christmas and about 3>So it's this great case study very early on, but this is what was occurring, uh, and. 00:06:28.880 --> 00:06:33.286 <v for Christmas and about 3>There really was no, uh, regulation or safety standards for hover boards. 00:06:33.505 --> 00:06:40.898 <v for Christmas and about 3>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. 00:06:41.305 --> 00:06:44.605 <v for Christmas and about 3>but before, before we started the show, I, I thought it'd be interesting. 00:06:44.605 --> 00:06:48.365 <v for Christmas and about 3>I took an inventory of all the lithium mine products that I. 00:06:48.588 --> 00:06:57.875 <v for Christmas and about 3>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. 00:06:57.875 --> 00:07:00.956 <v for Christmas and about 3>They're, they're not all as well developed as hoverboards. 00:07:00.956 --> 00:07:07.942 <v for Christmas and about 3>And, and I don't yet have, any immobility devices, but, they may come one day And so, know, I think that the, the. 00:07:09.182 --> 00:07:20.463 <v for Christmas and about 3>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. 00:07:20.642 --> 00:07:32.860 <v for Christmas and about 3>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. 00:07:33.300 --> 00:07:37.024 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I had an episode about, of this podcast with, Anya Bolinghouse Hoffman. 00:07:37.225 --> 00:07:42.577 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And, she's, uh, working in Germany on fire safety of, of vehicles, of buses. 00:07:42.577 --> 00:07:48.127 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And we were discussing how different the safety regulations for buses are from the train. 00:07:48.728 --> 00:07:55.228 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Industry like comp two, you would think it's very similar things in terms of interior of the vehicle and the material choices. 00:07:55.228 --> 00:07:59.848 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I, I mean our mine is the drive train and the trucks, it's the same thing essentially. 00:07:59.997 --> 00:08:07.384 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>and, and yet the differences are, vast, like two completely different industries with two completely different sets of standards, I guess. 00:08:07.990 --> 00:08:11.019 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>In the world of lithium batteries is, is the same. 00:08:11.019 --> 00:08:21.089 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:08:21.420 --> 00:08:24.750 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And I guess from this you could expect a higher safety margin. 00:08:25.420 --> 00:08:27.879 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>. And for some of this, it's, it's just another battery. 00:08:27.879 --> 00:08:37.113 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:08:37.113 --> 00:08:40.316 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And I'm not sure if there's any safety in this, in this flashlight. 00:08:40.735 --> 00:08:44.696 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Uh, and I would never expect a very significant engineering. 00:08:44.696 --> 00:08:53.370 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:08:53.370 --> 00:09:05.368 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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? 00:09:05.773 --> 00:09:09.143 <v Adam Barowy>well, I know, I know for, for certain what's at the higher end of safety. 00:09:09.508 --> 00:09:09.807 <v Adam Barowy>Yeah. 00:09:09.873 --> 00:09:14.635 <v Adam Barowy>Uh, I've got a battery in my motorcycle that I know has been pretty rid, rigorously tested. 00:09:14.730 --> 00:09:15.030 <v Adam Barowy>Okay. 00:09:15.235 --> 00:09:19.676 <v Adam Barowy>the, the lead acid battery, and I know that they put it through abuse testing because of the relatively. 00:09:20.140 --> 00:09:22.350 <v Adam Barowy>Abusive environment of, uh, Okay. 00:09:23.057 --> 00:09:25.738 <v Adam Barowy>and then other very popular consumer electronics. 00:09:25.738 --> 00:09:32.857 <v Adam Barowy>So we know that the cell phone industry, for example, has suffered a lot of, uh, bad publicity from, from previous battery incidents. 00:09:32.908 --> 00:09:37.620 <v Adam Barowy>So, those types of products, we know the co the quality control of the cells is much higher. 00:09:38.541 --> 00:09:44.494 <v Adam Barowy>where I think that things are probably a little less safe are rapidly developed products. 00:09:44.494 --> 00:09:46.677 <v Adam Barowy>Um, so where you have something. 00:09:47.211 --> 00:09:56.321 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:09:56.321 --> 00:09:57.760 <v Adam Barowy>So hoverboards were a great example. 00:09:58.130 --> 00:10:05.620 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:10:05.890 --> 00:10:12.940 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:10:12.940 --> 00:10:15.620 <v Adam Barowy>So you like pedal bikes, but with battery assist. 00:10:15.730 --> 00:10:17.419 <v Adam Barowy>That works very hard on safety. 00:10:17.559 --> 00:10:22.432 <v Adam Barowy>And they're sort of separate from these like delivery service oriented vehicles. 00:10:22.596 --> 00:10:26.015 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I guess, that, that, that's something that we talk about, a lot lately. 00:10:26.076 --> 00:10:33.395 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>These e e-mobility devices everyone was focusing a lot on, on the, vehicles, like cars, Mm-hmm. 00:10:33.691 --> 00:10:46.485 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:10:46.515 --> 00:10:51.219 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Uh, there was a lot of, a lot of media around that at some point. 00:10:51.219 --> 00:10:59.206 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:10:59.206 --> 00:11:00.706 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I mean, we're learning them for sure. 00:11:01.326 --> 00:11:05.605 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And I also have this feeling that, People are working on engineering them better now. 00:11:05.812 --> 00:11:30.091 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:11:30.557 --> 00:11:37.488 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>they, they're usually, uh, secure if it's large carpark, they would have some detection systems, ventilation systems, maybe sprinklers. 00:11:37.890 --> 00:11:38.160 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>they, they. 00:11:38.586 --> 00:11:40.301 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>provide access and stuff like that. 00:11:40.331 --> 00:11:47.967 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:11:48.357 --> 00:11:53.217 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And your living room is certainly a much worse place to, to have a fire. 00:11:53.475 --> 00:11:59.010 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So you've mentioned you had some experiences with, with your firefighters that would work with you. 00:11:59.370 --> 00:12:05.754 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I know UL is, is is very firefighter oriented institution that works with firefighters, uh, a lot. 00:12:06.164 --> 00:12:12.914 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>during your work on, on the batteries from these smaller devices, what were their views, like the firefighters views on this? 00:12:12.945 --> 00:12:16.815 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Did, does this really change the firefighting environment? 00:12:17.195 --> 00:12:17.684 <v Adam Barowy>Yeah. 00:12:17.684 --> 00:12:18.445 <v Adam Barowy>It, it does. 00:12:18.445 --> 00:12:24.783 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:12:24.856 --> 00:12:29.956 <v Adam Barowy>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 00:12:30.251 --> 00:12:30.741 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Yeah. 00:12:30.956 --> 00:12:33.801 <v Adam Barowy>cover the fundamentals of how hazards. 00:12:34.416 --> 00:12:36.615 <v Adam Barowy>From lithium ion battery, thermal runaways. 00:12:36.796 --> 00:12:46.567 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:12:46.918 --> 00:12:48.427 <v Adam Barowy>energy storage Okay. 00:12:48.677 --> 00:12:49.398 <v Adam Barowy>the fundamentals. 00:12:50.168 --> 00:12:52.567 <v Adam Barowy>on how hazard scenarios develop from that. 00:12:52.908 --> 00:13:03.173 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:13:03.509 --> 00:13:05.763 <v Adam Barowy>but you won't see many, many batteries in that test. 00:13:05.763 --> 00:13:08.003 <v Adam Barowy>We we're releasing flammable gas. 00:13:08.658 --> 00:13:11.857 <v Adam Barowy>that represents what comes out of a battery in thermal runaway. 00:13:12.268 --> 00:13:15.827 <v Adam Barowy>and so that really is independent of what type of battery pack it comes from. 00:13:16.107 --> 00:13:16.437 <v Adam Barowy>Okay. 00:13:16.508 --> 00:13:26.268 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:13:26.988 --> 00:13:27.477 <v Adam Barowy>Okay. 00:13:27.628 --> 00:13:31.024 <v Adam Barowy>once some of the tests that we ran in June, we represented. 00:13:31.379 --> 00:13:38.014 <v Adam Barowy>Fuel loads inside a garage by just using group A commodity that you would use for sprinkler testing as plastic and cardboard. 00:13:38.178 --> 00:13:45.558 <v Adam Barowy>and then we included some tests with batteries and tests without batteries, and so we had baseline performance of an unventilated compartment fire. 00:13:45.769 --> 00:13:47.519 <v Adam Barowy>We simulate fire department arrival. 00:13:47.688 --> 00:13:53.038 <v Adam Barowy>We simulate the ventilation that they would perform, including some We, it was really, really fun. 00:13:53.038 --> 00:13:54.318 <v Adam Barowy>We used pyrotechnics to. 00:13:55.453 --> 00:14:04.528 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:14:04.788 --> 00:14:08.687 <v Adam Barowy>You know, we, we simulate this cutting through the door and there's an unventilated compartment fire. 00:14:08.687 --> 00:14:09.768 <v Adam Barowy>It takes about 10 minutes. 00:14:09.998 --> 00:14:18.370 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:14:18.613 --> 00:14:19.894 <v Adam Barowy>Fire inside the commodity. 00:14:19.943 --> 00:14:34.634 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:14:34.774 --> 00:14:38.634 <v Adam Barowy>And so then when we simulate this saw operat. 00:14:39.038 --> 00:14:44.428 <v Adam Barowy>With, sparking, we saw immediately that the smoke coming out around the edges of the garage door lit on fire. 00:14:44.568 --> 00:14:49.014 <v Adam Barowy>And as the vent is pulled open, the fire just immediately responds and gets much, much larger. 00:14:49.229 --> 00:14:56.666 <v Adam Barowy>and in, in one of those cases when we simulated thermal runaway, without starting a commodity fire, we managed to get a deflagration. 00:14:56.865 --> 00:14:58.591 <v Adam Barowy>So there was enough buildup Wow. 00:14:58.785 --> 00:14:59.706 <v Adam Barowy>from these thermal run. 00:15:00.571 --> 00:15:08.130 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:15:08.498 --> 00:15:12.097 <v Adam Barowy>so that was part one of this big project that we've been running. 00:15:12.317 --> 00:15:17.457 <v Adam Barowy>And part two was we actually went and built a residential garage with real construction. 00:15:18.192 --> 00:15:24.582 <v Adam Barowy>Because we, we wanted to find out if that type of deflagration happened again, what would happen in a real residential structure? 00:15:24.873 --> 00:15:26.232 <v Adam Barowy>how would the hazards develop? 00:15:26.232 --> 00:15:36.533 <v Adam Barowy>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? 00:15:36.623 --> 00:15:39.686 <v Adam Barowy>So, there's a lot of really fascinating details around that. 00:15:39.686 --> 00:15:42.605 <v Adam Barowy>But that project is, is essentially focused. 00:15:43.395 --> 00:15:51.192 <v Adam Barowy>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? 00:15:51.317 --> 00:15:59.443 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:15:59.443 --> 00:16:02.293 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So that's, That's definitely a massive, uh, difference in the play field. 00:16:02.542 --> 00:16:07.171 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>so in, in your tests, it was both the, the, the battery was the primary item. 00:16:07.171 --> 00:16:16.620 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:16:16.941 --> 00:16:17.541 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Around it. 00:16:17.918 --> 00:16:18.921 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>and what happens? 00:16:19.234 --> 00:16:21.313 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>was it only in like, garage settings? 00:16:21.464 --> 00:16:31.573 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:16:31.573 --> 00:16:37.693 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>They don't have the comfort of having a, a separate, um, room to, to keep your mobility devices. 00:16:37.964 --> 00:16:40.254 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So, so, and, and you would still like to charge. 00:16:40.844 --> 00:16:42.413 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Scooter for the next day. 00:16:42.803 --> 00:16:46.913 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So, so you'd bring it home with you, like to the kitchen, to the residential, uh, room. 00:16:47.136 --> 00:16:48.783 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>have you tried anything like that? 00:16:49.214 --> 00:16:50.240 <v Adam Barowy>Uh, yes, actually. 00:16:50.571 --> 00:16:55.500 <v Adam Barowy>I was in the midst uh, moving and when, when we ran these tests, so I was unfortunately not able to attend. 00:16:55.500 --> 00:17:00.091 <v Adam Barowy>But, so FSRI ran some tests in the fall of 2022. 00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:09.721 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:17:09.721 --> 00:17:20.601 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:17:21.050 --> 00:17:23.415 <v Adam Barowy>if you were in like a high rise apartment, it Yep. 00:17:23.451 --> 00:17:24.730 <v Adam Barowy>the living space and the exit. 00:17:25.655 --> 00:17:32.096 <v Adam Barowy>we, we talked about deflations, but when we were setting up these tests, we were not necessarily expecting deflations. 00:17:32.096 --> 00:17:36.296 <v Adam Barowy>We, we did put the instrumentation there to be able to measure the pressurized if we had them. 00:17:36.756 --> 00:17:41.838 <v Adam Barowy>But, in actually both of the, the first two tests, we had deflations that blew the windows out. 00:17:42.209 --> 00:17:43.358 <v Adam Barowy>Um, and this was from. 00:17:44.294 --> 00:17:48.054 <v Adam Barowy>thermal runaway going through the battery pack very quickly and releasing unburned gas. 00:17:48.601 --> 00:17:54.020 <v Adam Barowy>you would get this, you know, mixture of, of, uh, gas and vapors that sort of enveloped the e-bike. 00:17:54.371 --> 00:18:02.211 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:18:02.300 --> 00:18:03.971 <v Adam Barowy>So it's, it is really remarkable. 00:18:05.256 --> 00:18:06.776 <v Adam Barowy>you know, those are in tests that we forced. 00:18:06.776 --> 00:18:21.695 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:18:22.105 --> 00:18:24.057 <v Adam Barowy>so it was behind a closed door. 00:18:24.057 --> 00:18:27.945 <v Adam Barowy>And when, when that scooter went into the, a runaway, it caused that closet to explode. 00:18:28.006 --> 00:18:30.885 <v Adam Barowy>And so the homeowner thought someone was trying to break into the house. 00:18:30.885 --> 00:18:31.846 <v Adam Barowy>So he, he ran into his. 00:18:32.233 --> 00:18:41.288 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:18:41.288 --> 00:18:43.698 <v Adam Barowy>But, so we, we know these incidents are happening. 00:18:43.698 --> 00:18:50.750 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:18:50.820 --> 00:19:02.097 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:19:02.416 --> 00:19:06.998 <v Adam Barowy>it is happening, uh, and it is happening more with, you know, some, some products than others. 00:19:06.998 --> 00:19:11.417 <v Adam Barowy>So I think, you know, our focus is, as I mentioned, swinging towards the fundamentals and what we can. 00:19:12.127 --> 00:19:17.263 <v Adam Barowy>To address, especially for the fire service, what they can do about how these fundamental hazards are developing. 00:19:17.796 --> 00:19:28.050 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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? 00:19:28.209 --> 00:19:39.148 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:19:39.148 --> 00:19:40.409 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Or, or, or, or something. 00:19:40.618 --> 00:19:50.179 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:19:50.376 --> 00:19:56.746 <v Adam Barowy>Yeah, it, we, as we were talking about data earlier, I, I, it's hard to know how many of these incidents are happening. 00:19:57.117 --> 00:20:05.048 <v Adam Barowy>I have a short list of incidents where I suspect there was partial volume deflagration, you know, leading to the outcome of the incident. 00:20:05.673 --> 00:20:24.627 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:20:24.627 --> 00:20:27.428 <v Adam Barowy>It, there's, it does come out of the battery very. 00:20:28.478 --> 00:20:30.857 <v Adam Barowy>But it tends to linger around the source. 00:20:30.917 --> 00:20:31.863 <v Adam Barowy>And Okay. 00:20:32.218 --> 00:20:41.337 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:20:41.678 --> 00:20:44.923 <v Adam Barowy>And you get what can be a pretty significant partial volume deflation. 00:20:44.923 --> 00:20:49.229 <v Adam Barowy>So I'm, I'm reluctant to call them common because I don't Okay. 00:20:49.564 --> 00:20:51.723 <v Adam Barowy>to the, to the fear of lithium ion batteries. 00:20:52.183 --> 00:20:56.124 <v Adam Barowy>But, um, I think when you have this delayed ignition, they're, they're always possible. 00:20:56.355 --> 00:21:03.615 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>it's a very challenging scenario because it also leads to, to significant change in the, um, ventilation of the compartment 00:21:03.840 --> 00:21:04.451 <v Adam Barowy>Mm-hmm. 00:21:04.635 --> 00:21:08.086 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>uh, that promotes, flashover, uh, easier growth of the fire. 00:21:08.415 --> 00:21:10.276 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So, so, so that's, that's very interesting. 00:21:10.702 --> 00:21:21.262 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:21:21.262 --> 00:21:24.893 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Actually, actually, I, I, I saw it once, but it was not, that one was not massive. 00:21:25.313 --> 00:21:27.413 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>But, but you've seen that in, in a compartment setting. 00:21:28.103 --> 00:21:35.182 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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? 00:21:35.182 --> 00:21:38.843 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Is it possible to take it over with a household extinguishing. 00:21:39.766 --> 00:21:45.972 <v Adam Barowy>sa sadly, I I don't think it's wise to advise anyone to try to do something about it after it started. 00:21:45.972 --> 00:21:50.209 <v Adam Barowy>Really, it may be, that the severity doesn't turn out to be what it could be. 00:21:50.657 --> 00:21:59.903 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:21:59.903 --> 00:22:03.673 <v Adam Barowy>If, if you just do a little bit of searching on YouTube, you can Yeah. 00:22:03.903 --> 00:22:10.782 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:22:11.182 --> 00:22:12.726 <v Adam Barowy>and it's really alarming. 00:22:12.726 --> 00:22:16.883 <v Adam Barowy>There's, there's actually even worse, there's some, uh, videos and elevators, and of course that's a. 00:22:18.532 --> 00:22:18.692 <v Adam Barowy>scenario. 00:22:18.942 --> 00:22:27.159 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:22:27.159 --> 00:22:33.798 <v Adam Barowy>But if you look at the yield of gases from unburned, uh, battery gas, you tend to see very high co. 00:22:34.169 --> 00:22:36.838 <v Adam Barowy>So, you know, up to 30 to 40% co. 00:22:37.534 --> 00:22:43.653 <v Adam Barowy>whereas your standard under ventilated compartment fire with, with typical fuels is maybe around six or 7% co. 00:22:44.023 --> 00:22:48.743 <v Adam Barowy>so the release of that gas can be very toxic in a closed, compartment. 00:22:48.753 --> 00:22:51.064 <v Adam Barowy>So I think it's just essential that people leave. 00:22:51.405 --> 00:22:57.438 <v Adam Barowy>the F D N Y, the fire Department of New York City, has partnered with us on developing some, some guidelines. 00:22:57.438 --> 00:23:02.117 <v Adam Barowy>And so we always refer to what they recommend you do if you have these devices. 00:23:02.117 --> 00:23:07.314 <v Adam Barowy>I mean, they recognize these are becoming essential for people's livelihood, especially in New York City. 00:23:07.574 --> 00:23:08.104 <v Adam Barowy>there's, Hmm. 00:23:08.173 --> 00:23:11.614 <v Adam Barowy>a whole economy around E-bikes now enabling jobs. 00:23:12.534 --> 00:23:15.534 <v Adam Barowy>so it, it kind of takes away someone's livelihood to say, you cannot have this. 00:23:15.780 --> 00:23:20.730 <v Adam Barowy>so what they've tried to do is, is create this compilation of, of things you can do. 00:23:20.730 --> 00:23:24.010 <v Adam Barowy>Like don't charge it between you and your path of egress. 00:23:24.300 --> 00:23:26.250 <v Adam Barowy>Uh, don't leave the charger unattended. 00:23:26.621 --> 00:23:34.998 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:23:34.998 --> 00:23:37.203 <v Adam Barowy>But, of, part of the challenge that. 00:23:37.498 --> 00:23:44.028 <v Adam Barowy>I feel a little bit is, you know, out of our reach as fire researchers is the socioeconomic system which drives that. 00:23:44.208 --> 00:23:46.728 <v Adam Barowy>so I, I'll just address it and say that that's a, that's a problem. 00:23:46.788 --> 00:23:52.453 <v Adam Barowy>But, um, it's not really something blowing up our ranch house with, uh, e-bikes can really solve right away. 00:23:52.864 --> 00:23:53.703 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Yeah, of course. 00:23:53.703 --> 00:24:13.691 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:24:14.080 --> 00:24:17.830 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And in the end, what we got is a chariot for security in shopping malls. 00:24:18.310 --> 00:24:21.971 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And this, this, uh, revolution did not happen at all. 00:24:22.141 --> 00:24:37.556 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:24:37.855 --> 00:24:38.846 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So, so indeed. 00:24:38.846 --> 00:24:47.665 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>It, it is doing some sort of revolution, silent revolution in the way how people, um, can move, especially in large cities. 00:24:47.875 --> 00:24:57.556 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>That also means that people are taking them together, uh, with them into buses, into, into metro, into, into offices, into waiting rooms. 00:24:58.250 --> 00:25:02.851 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>It's very interesting how it changes the landscape, but that's also why we are talking, in this podcast. 00:25:02.851 --> 00:25:09.010 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>It's not about everyone should, should ban, uh, e-mobility devices and then stay away because it's the devil's work. 00:25:09.070 --> 00:25:11.951 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>It's, it's about understanding them and, and finding ways. 00:25:11.951 --> 00:25:13.597 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>How can we live with them safely. 00:25:13.824 --> 00:25:17.317 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>my next question would be how big are these fire? 00:25:17.827 --> 00:25:26.768 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:25:27.248 --> 00:25:33.728 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And if I'm not wrong, they've reached something like one megawatt within like one minute from the start of the fire. 00:25:34.117 --> 00:25:36.488 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And, I thought that that's an interesting number. 00:25:36.691 --> 00:25:40.111 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>there's a very large fire developing very, very quickly. 00:25:40.141 --> 00:25:43.050 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Like one megawatt under one minute. 00:25:43.201 --> 00:25:44.933 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>That's, quicker than ultra fast fire. 00:25:45.144 --> 00:25:46.614 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Ultra fast is 75 seconds. 00:25:46.614 --> 00:25:46.913 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Right. 00:25:47.394 --> 00:25:48.023 <v Adam Barowy>Uh, 00:25:48.028 --> 00:25:49.163 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>that's, that's, that's crazy. 00:25:49.163 --> 00:25:51.284 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>What's your experience with, with burning these things? 00:25:51.637 --> 00:26:04.688 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:26:05.107 --> 00:26:12.536 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:26:12.540 --> 00:26:19.205 <v Adam Barowy>we talked about, We wanted to create a representation of a residential energy storage system, by simulating the construction. 00:26:19.205 --> 00:26:25.766 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:26:26.053 --> 00:26:29.675 <v Adam Barowy>and we, we roughly simulated the same electrochemical capacity. 00:26:30.419 --> 00:26:39.219 <v Adam Barowy>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? 00:26:39.707 --> 00:26:46.473 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:26:46.574 --> 00:26:50.193 <v Adam Barowy>And then our results are also tied to that one specific type of product. 00:26:50.884 --> 00:27:01.698 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:27:02.057 --> 00:27:08.431 <v Adam Barowy>There were some partitions, but, we, we achieved about seven megawatts within about 30 seconds, which is just truly Okay. 00:27:09.530 --> 00:27:10.800 <v Adam Barowy>we that's a lot. 00:27:10.840 --> 00:27:14.421 <v Adam Barowy>had so that's, I, Yes, I would say that that's something. 00:27:14.512 --> 00:27:20.098 <v Adam Barowy>that that would represent a potential fire growth, uh, hazard of a DIY energy storage system. 00:27:20.098 --> 00:27:28.808 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:27:29.108 --> 00:27:36.336 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:27:36.336 --> 00:27:37.455 <v Adam Barowy>It, it can be very fast. 00:27:37.928 --> 00:27:38.768 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>That's very interesting. 00:27:38.768 --> 00:27:44.750 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And, and, the, in the next iterations of your, uh, mockup, uh, energy storage system, did you achieve lesser, heat release rates? 00:27:44.750 --> 00:27:46.280 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>How, how did you improve that? 00:27:46.625 --> 00:27:47.816 <v Adam Barowy>uh, we did, we did. 00:27:47.816 --> 00:27:54.055 <v Adam Barowy>And so, we did that by essentially getting a little bit more detailed, investing more time in how we did all the partitioning. 00:27:54.421 --> 00:27:55.605 <v Adam Barowy>instead of having them sort of. 00:27:56.263 --> 00:27:58.483 <v Adam Barowy>All a conglomerated inside one enclosure. 00:27:59.503 --> 00:28:07.354 <v Adam Barowy>did, 30 cell packs, which are closer to like these, 100 amp hour cells that you might see sort of commercially available now. 00:28:07.604 --> 00:28:15.243 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:28:15.243 --> 00:28:16.884 <v Adam Barowy>And I know, I know DK talked about that. 00:28:17.898 --> 00:28:20.105 <v Adam Barowy>kind of a, a, a popular, cell format. 00:28:20.365 --> 00:28:25.286 <v Adam Barowy>And, once we did that, what we saw not this, um, standard fire growth rate curve. 00:28:25.286 --> 00:28:31.326 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:28:31.326 --> 00:28:39.445 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:28:39.625 --> 00:28:42.405 <v Adam Barowy>And so you get these very quick release. 00:28:42.573 --> 00:28:55.766 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:28:56.125 --> 00:29:02.992 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>did you ever try and measure, release, uh, the, the gas release velocity or the quantities of gas release? 00:29:03.053 --> 00:29:05.962 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Uh, when, when a terminal runaway occurs? 00:29:06.323 --> 00:29:20.473 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:29:20.953 --> 00:29:21.794 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>That's not a problem. 00:29:21.794 --> 00:29:23.443 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I can do one megawatt 30 seconds. 00:29:23.443 --> 00:29:24.044 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Not a problem. 00:29:24.673 --> 00:29:27.703 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>My worry came from the fact that this. 00:29:28.073 --> 00:29:32.873 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>initial release has a certain kinetic energy to it. 00:29:32.873 --> 00:29:36.266 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I mean, it's not anymore, uh, you know, a free burning item. 00:29:36.270 --> 00:29:38.786 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>It's not anymore a buoyant plume on its own. 00:29:39.230 --> 00:29:40.955 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>it acts differently in the physics. 00:29:41.016 --> 00:29:42.935 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>It has inertia in in the gases. 00:29:42.935 --> 00:29:44.165 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>It has velocity. 00:29:44.354 --> 00:29:47.853 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Have, have you ever tried to quantify these, uh, features of this flows? 00:29:48.333 --> 00:29:51.877 <v Adam Barowy>um, I, I don't know if this will answer your question perfectly, yes. 00:29:52.694 --> 00:29:53.844 <v Adam Barowy>in, in two different ways. 00:29:54.013 --> 00:30:02.867 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:30:02.917 --> 00:30:16.215 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:30:16.373 --> 00:30:16.732 <v Adam Barowy>Okay. 00:30:17.053 --> 00:30:23.909 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:30:24.419 --> 00:30:32.949 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:30:33.729 --> 00:30:34.338 <v Adam Barowy>Mm-hmm. 00:30:34.348 --> 00:30:41.628 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:30:42.048 --> 00:30:43.548 <v Adam Barowy>And so that's very high velocity. 00:30:44.432 --> 00:30:50.653 <v Adam Barowy>we've found more meaningful is in, doing measurements of what kinds of gas come out, and what Okay. 00:30:50.932 --> 00:30:51.692 <v Adam Barowy>volumes come out. 00:30:51.692 --> 00:30:54.726 <v Adam Barowy>And that's, uh, that's really more focused for energy storage systems. 00:30:54.895 --> 00:31:07.057 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:31:07.067 --> 00:31:14.361 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:31:14.580 --> 00:31:17.560 <v Adam Barowy>You have to make some assumptions about rate. 00:31:17.891 --> 00:31:19.385 <v Adam Barowy>Um, so you might have to Mm-hmm. 00:31:19.780 --> 00:31:22.601 <v Adam Barowy>And we worked with a, we worked with Bob Zalo on a. 00:31:23.361 --> 00:31:27.681 <v Adam Barowy>where he proposes a model for how you can just do a very simple sort of exponential decay. 00:31:28.034 --> 00:31:31.223 <v Adam Barowy>so you have this kind of like step release and then exponential decay. 00:31:31.459 --> 00:31:48.367 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:31:48.665 --> 00:31:49.556 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>so, so. 00:31:49.576 --> 00:31:57.040 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>It's not just, uh, related to the technology of the cell itself, but also the enclosure in which the cell is, uh, contained. 00:31:57.040 --> 00:32:05.111 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And, uh, eventual safety features like release valves and adding connectors, any openings in this enclosure will drive. 00:32:05.141 --> 00:32:06.580 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Okay, that, that makes sense. 00:32:06.580 --> 00:32:09.233 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>You release a lot of gas in, uh, in an en close space area. 00:32:09.239 --> 00:32:10.433 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>It has to ventilate somewhere. 00:32:10.663 --> 00:32:13.367 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>you've mentioned energy storage systems, uh, a lot. 00:32:13.367 --> 00:32:16.038 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And, uh, as, as you've said before, you. 00:32:16.347 --> 00:32:22.317 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Quickly transitioned from being the, the hover by guy into someone testing the, the storage systems. 00:32:22.645 --> 00:32:30.743 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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? 00:32:30.834 --> 00:32:34.824 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>H how does, uh, how does you test this type of devices? 00:32:35.703 --> 00:32:39.493 <v Adam Barowy>So, uh, we, we developed a standard called UL 95 40 a. 00:32:39.624 --> 00:32:41.624 <v Adam Barowy>Uh, it's, it's now an anti, standard. 00:32:41.624 --> 00:32:43.903 <v Adam Barowy>It's by national, so it's a consensus based standard. 00:32:44.248 --> 00:32:50.973 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:32:51.304 --> 00:32:52.344 <v Adam Barowy>So Mm. 00:32:53.374 --> 00:32:55.574 <v Adam Barowy>off the bat is determine at the cell. 00:32:56.378 --> 00:32:58.659 <v Adam Barowy>if that product can have thermal runaway. 00:32:58.659 --> 00:33:04.338 <v Adam Barowy>There are kind of some amazing products that are not lithium ion chemistries that, that don't have thermal runaways. 00:33:04.827 --> 00:33:05.188 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Okay. 00:33:05.326 --> 00:33:18.159 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:33:18.959 --> 00:33:29.759 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:33:30.019 --> 00:33:39.159 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:33:39.159 --> 00:33:39.318 <v Adam Barowy>What. 00:33:39.881 --> 00:33:47.432 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:33:47.607 --> 00:33:54.243 <v Adam Barowy>of ul, we still are not able to certify the complete fire and explosion safety of an energy storage system. 00:33:54.243 --> 00:34:00.191 <v Adam Barowy>So right now what people do is they run this, test and they get a, a data report that can be used by an. 00:34:01.070 --> 00:34:02.471 <v Adam Barowy>to design a, a safety system. 00:34:02.651 --> 00:34:03.904 <v Adam Barowy>And then that has to Okay. 00:34:03.974 --> 00:34:17.617 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:34:17.949 --> 00:34:22.255 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And, and, how, how do you initiate the, the failure in, in this test? 00:34:22.255 --> 00:34:24.746 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I mean, you, you have to initiate somehow. 00:34:24.775 --> 00:34:27.708 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>You overcharge, you overheat, you, you nail them. 00:34:27.947 --> 00:34:30.784 <v Adam Barowy>we know there are many different product designs. 00:34:30.784 --> 00:34:34.184 <v Adam Barowy>So for example, the, we, we feel the best way is, is to go by heating. 00:34:34.461 --> 00:34:43.742 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:34:43.923 --> 00:34:45.572 <v Adam Barowy>so our standard is written. 00:34:46.159 --> 00:34:50.918 <v Adam Barowy>the heating of the cells is really what causes the thermal runaway of that, that one or more cells. 00:34:51.018 --> 00:34:59.994 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:35:00.485 --> 00:35:12.610 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:35:13.094 --> 00:35:15.304 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>By, by propagation you mean cell to cell? 00:35:15.364 --> 00:35:15.925 <v Adam Barowy>Mm-hmm. 00:35:15.931 --> 00:35:16.900 <v Adam Barowy>Yeah, that's correct. 00:35:16.900 --> 00:35:17.172 <v Adam Barowy>Yep. 00:35:17.175 --> 00:35:22.871 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And, does the state of charge be important in this test or in, in, in your case? 00:35:22.931 --> 00:35:25.960 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Uh, you, you just have a certain value which you test them with. 00:35:26.141 --> 00:35:27.210 <v Adam Barowy>Yeah, absolutely. 00:35:28.068 --> 00:35:33.697 <v Adam Barowy>we, we require it to be 100% state of charge, cuz that's essentially how you get the most severe thermal runaway. 00:35:33.851 --> 00:35:41.311 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:35:41.380 --> 00:35:45.411 <v Adam Barowy>um, it, it allows us to consistently evaluate, uh, all products across the board. 00:35:45.873 --> 00:35:59.619 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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? 00:36:00.155 --> 00:36:00.885 <v Adam Barowy>Well, yeah. 00:36:00.885 --> 00:36:06.804 <v Adam Barowy>So the, the, it's the propagation of thermal runaway from cell to cell that really drives whatever the end hazard is. 00:36:07.737 --> 00:36:19.873 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:36:19.873 --> 00:36:25.065 <v Adam Barowy>So batteries are essentially, to me they're, they're like a gas leak, so they're leaking this flammable gas. 00:36:25.235 --> 00:36:27.545 <v Adam Barowy>If that ignites, it could be a fire if it accumulates. 00:36:27.545 --> 00:36:31.626 <v Adam Barowy>It can be an explosion hazard, and it can kind of be anywhere in between. 00:36:31.885 --> 00:36:36.186 <v Adam Barowy>You can have a fire that burns in this battery pack and then consumes all the oxygen in a. 00:36:37.081 --> 00:36:43.557 <v Adam Barowy>the batteries keep propagating and now you sort of have this, extra flammable gas layer that's now accumulated in this room. 00:36:43.938 --> 00:36:45.987 <v Adam Barowy>And that's of, kind of, uh, similar. 00:36:46.177 --> 00:36:50.588 <v Adam Barowy>I dunno if you heard about the explosion, which occurred in surprise, Arizona with the EM energy storage system. 00:36:50.588 --> 00:36:53.748 <v Adam Barowy>That's kind of similar to what occurred in Surprise Arizona. 00:36:53.748 --> 00:36:56.208 <v Adam Barowy>This this accumulation of Hmm. 00:36:56.367 --> 00:37:03.228 <v Adam Barowy>and when first responders arrived and, and opened the door to this structure, you know, enabled this exchange of those gases with. 00:37:04.137 --> 00:37:05.137 <v Adam Barowy>created a flammable mixture. 00:37:05.137 --> 00:37:09.581 <v Adam Barowy>So remarkable to me how complicated the large scale fire dynamics can become. 00:37:09.996 --> 00:37:24.849 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:37:24.849 --> 00:37:43.376 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:37:43.380 --> 00:37:44.726 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I really appreciate this, this 00:37:44.726 --> 00:37:45.025 <v Adam Barowy>way. 00:37:45.306 --> 00:37:49.750 <v Adam Barowy>I'm really, uh, kind of excited cuz uh, you've had the guests on your show already. 00:37:49.750 --> 00:37:53.432 <v Adam Barowy>I've, I listened to, you know, Mr Restuccia uh, podcast episode with you. 00:37:53.643 --> 00:38:03.909 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:38:04.940 --> 00:38:07.860 <v Adam Barowy>accessible understanding of how hazards develop. 00:38:08.320 --> 00:38:15.333 <v Adam Barowy>And, you know, sort of selfishly, this was something I had to do, in order to do safe testing of products. 00:38:15.333 --> 00:38:17.773 <v Adam Barowy>There's one, one very specific test we ran. 00:38:18.380 --> 00:38:19.996 <v Adam Barowy>a, it was a energy storage system. 00:38:19.996 --> 00:38:23.635 <v Adam Barowy>We put in our large scale facility that weighed about 25,000 pounds. 00:38:24.005 --> 00:38:25.315 <v Adam Barowy>it was really, really big. 00:38:25.315 --> 00:38:38.300 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:38:38.300 --> 00:38:40.900 <v Adam Barowy>And we said, these are all our termination conditions. 00:38:40.900 --> 00:38:43.019 <v Adam Barowy>When the hazards may become too much for the. 00:38:43.724 --> 00:38:45.204 <v Adam Barowy>and we have to shut this test down. 00:38:45.478 --> 00:38:56.398 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:38:56.697 --> 00:39:05.907 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:39:05.907 --> 00:39:12.820 <v Adam Barowy>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? 00:39:12.820 --> 00:39:14.648 <v Adam Barowy>Or maybe you do something a little less risky? 00:39:14.771 --> 00:39:25.300 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:39:25.811 --> 00:39:40.175 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:39:41.434 --> 00:39:53.568 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:39:53.617 --> 00:39:54.628 <v Adam Barowy>Yeah, absolutely. 00:39:54.628 --> 00:39:57.387 <v Adam Barowy>Oh, so I've been patiently waiting for my moment to strike. 00:39:57.387 --> 00:40:10.077 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:40:10.077 --> 00:40:17.030 <v Adam Barowy>You know, you've got this standard, matrix and I think the battery industry, especially for energy storage, but, but really every. 00:40:17.670 --> 00:40:24.331 <v Adam Barowy>Has worked really hard on reducing the frequency of battery incidents, uh, and only, I think recently. 00:40:24.331 --> 00:40:37.507 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:40:37.648 --> 00:40:40.934 <v Adam Barowy>And so then they're, they're designed 2.0 or they're designed three point. 00:40:41.269 --> 00:40:46.119 <v Adam Barowy>Starts to really incorporate more safety features that lessen the severity of some of those consequences. 00:40:46.500 --> 00:40:56.760 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:40:56.945 --> 00:41:02.672 <v Adam Barowy>and test I mentioned in our large scale fire lab, we ended redoing that test, years later. 00:41:03.092 --> 00:41:06.996 <v Adam Barowy>And achieved the result they were looking for, but still had a very large fire. 00:41:07.849 --> 00:41:18.610 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:41:18.610 --> 00:41:22.565 <v Adam Barowy>It's, really, uh, been very exciting to watch this, you know, development. 00:41:22.753 --> 00:41:23.543 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>f for the end. 00:41:23.543 --> 00:41:33.802 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:41:34.105 --> 00:41:40.920 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>do you have an experience to what extent a residential sprinkler can contain, uh, fire that starts at, e-mobility device 00:41:41.599 --> 00:41:41.949 <v Adam Barowy>Um, 00:41:42.090 --> 00:41:42.300 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>small? 00:41:42.860 --> 00:41:45.036 <v Adam Barowy>not, not personal experience, but yeah. 00:41:45.215 --> 00:41:50.655 <v Adam Barowy>as luck would have at this incident I was talking about, uh, with this, uh, battalion chief from Virginia yesterday. 00:41:51.106 --> 00:41:56.505 <v Adam Barowy>he mentioned that the residential sprinkler was able to hold this closet fire in check until the fire department arrived. 00:41:56.505 --> 00:41:59.786 <v Adam Barowy>So the, the scooter fire had not overwhelmed that sprinkler. 00:42:00.206 --> 00:42:12.663 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:42:13.333 --> 00:42:20.932 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:42:21.411 --> 00:42:23.121 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Uh, I think that's very interesting research. 00:42:23.121 --> 00:42:28.518 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And have you ever looked into, storage systems for, uh, e-mobility devices? 00:42:28.518 --> 00:42:37.010 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:42:37.010 --> 00:42:43.161 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And in Poland, also in modern skyscrapers, we have these places where people can keep their mobility devices. 00:42:43.581 --> 00:42:46.550 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I wonder what type of safety systems we should start designing for 00:42:46.550 --> 00:42:47.001 <v Adam Barowy>those. 00:42:47.195 --> 00:42:53.996 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:42:54.362 --> 00:43:00.786 <v Adam Barowy>but, the way we store propane tanks in these outside caged units, you know, I think that that's, that gets you your separation. 00:43:00.786 --> 00:43:02.226 <v Adam Barowy>It may get you your containment. 00:43:03.201 --> 00:43:08.686 <v Adam Barowy>But there's, interestingly enough, there's a industry that's responding to some of these hazards. 00:43:09.054 --> 00:43:12.724 <v Adam Barowy>so it's sort of like flammable liquid storage cabinets painted a different color. 00:43:12.724 --> 00:43:15.284 <v Adam Barowy>So it's, uh, you know, battery appropriate, like blue or green. 00:43:15.784 --> 00:43:22.331 <v Adam Barowy>and they're marketed for, storing, uh, you know, so power tool packs or e-bike batteries, whatever fits inside the shelving. 00:43:22.670 --> 00:43:28.451 <v Adam Barowy>And so there's been a lot of requests for UL to develop a standard for these cabinets or these contain. 00:43:28.757 --> 00:43:29.338 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Oh, that's very 00:43:30.257 --> 00:43:30.458 <v Adam Barowy>interesting. 00:43:30.458 --> 00:43:30.697 <v Adam Barowy>Yeah. 00:43:30.972 --> 00:43:35.932 <v Adam Barowy>and we know that it's needed because, so we, we ran some demonstration tests to say, well, is there a real hazard there? 00:43:35.932 --> 00:43:37.972 <v Adam Barowy>And ab absolutely, we blew the door off the cabinet. 00:43:37.972 --> 00:43:41.471 <v Adam Barowy>We tested, in the first try, So we, Hmm. 00:43:41.686 --> 00:43:42.166 <v Adam Barowy>that it's needed. 00:43:42.166 --> 00:43:47.206 <v Adam Barowy>There would need to be some advanced, you know, safety features to contain whatever occurs inside. 00:43:47.206 --> 00:43:50.840 <v Adam Barowy>But, yeah, I think it's, that would solve such a huge part of the problem. 00:43:50.931 --> 00:43:59.161 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:43:59.548 --> 00:44:00.039 <v Adam Barowy>sure. 00:44:00.039 --> 00:44:00.278 <v Adam Barowy>Yeah. 00:44:00.278 --> 00:44:09.132 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:44:09.626 --> 00:44:17.826 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:44:17.826 --> 00:44:22.615 <v Adam Barowy>um, or where you may have a battery thermo runaway inside a closed energy storage unit. 00:44:22.965 --> 00:44:33.295 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:44:34.146 --> 00:44:37.945 <v Adam Barowy>for how to respond to types of battery incidents for how we use our batteries. 00:44:38.286 --> 00:44:45.456 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:44:45.456 --> 00:44:46.856 <v Adam Barowy>Be aware of how you're using it. 00:44:47.032 --> 00:44:51.501 <v Adam Barowy>and you can actually have some impact on reducing your own risk drivers. 00:44:51.512 --> 00:44:55.621 <v Adam Barowy>So whether that's reducing the, the likelihood you're going to have a thermal run. 00:44:56.322 --> 00:44:59.322 <v Adam Barowy>or reducing the consequences of if you do have a thermo runaway. 00:44:59.322 --> 00:45:05.643 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:45:05.643 --> 00:45:14.682 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:45:15.248 --> 00:45:17.768 <v Adam Barowy>to, you know, make sure that we mitigate it and we move on. 00:45:17.768 --> 00:45:23.688 <v Adam Barowy>And, you know, next, next time it'll be, uh, hopefully it's microgravity space hazards as we all move to Marsh 00:45:23.789 --> 00:45:38.474 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:45:38.898 --> 00:45:52.072 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>, 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? 00:45:52.072 --> 00:45:54.780 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Is, is there any good advice we could give to, to people 00:45:55.012 --> 00:45:56.021 <v Adam Barowy>Yeah, absolutely. 00:45:56.021 --> 00:46:04.617 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:46:04.751 --> 00:46:05.472 <v Adam Barowy>case I miss them. 00:46:05.523 --> 00:46:17.393 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:46:17.393 --> 00:46:19.672 <v Adam Barowy>So don't leave them unattended and charging. 00:46:20.043 --> 00:46:24.632 <v Adam Barowy>Um, charge them inside the, uh, environmental conditions that they say they're supposed to be for. 00:46:24.632 --> 00:46:26.032 <v Adam Barowy>So not too hot, not too cold. 00:46:26.614 --> 00:46:28.862 <v Adam Barowy>and, also be mindful of where you're storing them. 00:46:28.862 --> 00:46:33.822 <v Adam Barowy>Don't store them near other combustibles and don't just store them between yourself and your means of egress. 00:46:34.271 --> 00:46:42.581 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:46:42.856 --> 00:46:43.697 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Oh, that's fantastic. 00:46:43.721 --> 00:46:44.650 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>that helps me a lot. 00:46:44.650 --> 00:46:47.981 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I'll spread this, uh, in Poland for sure. 00:46:47.985 --> 00:46:52.240 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And, uh, hopefully I'll be a little less, uh, worried about fear mongering. 00:46:52.391 --> 00:46:58.451 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Something that sometimes a little, a little bit of fear mongering is, is necessary, uh, for, for people to, to catch up and, 00:46:58.481 --> 00:47:00.536 <v Adam Barowy>uh, it's, it's good motivation, you know? 00:47:00.536 --> 00:47:01.655 <v Adam Barowy>I think it's natural to have. 00:47:02.335 --> 00:47:08.297 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Yeah, I, I, I feel obligated for safety of, of my colleagues and other people in here. 00:47:08.302 --> 00:47:17.753 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:47:17.813 --> 00:47:26.471 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Uh, so nowadays, I, this feeling, you know, whenever I see so, Me as a fire professional, uh, I feel that something is risky. 00:47:26.610 --> 00:47:34.818 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:47:35.297 --> 00:47:37.188 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So, yeah, that, that's the mindset. 00:47:37.188 --> 00:47:37.847 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>But, uh, 00:47:38.057 --> 00:47:39.978 <v Adam Barowy>I, I love the personal responsibility. 00:47:39.978 --> 00:47:42.418 <v Adam Barowy>I mean, I think that's what drives many of us in this industry. 00:47:42.721 --> 00:47:44.460 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Adam, thank you, uh, so much. 00:47:44.460 --> 00:47:53.409 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>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. 00:47:53.798 --> 00:47:59.679 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I'm very happy to see how this space evolves and grows and, uh, move towards safety in general. 00:48:00.039 --> 00:48:00.909 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>It's, it's, it's been a. 00:48:01.114 --> 00:48:05.284 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Pleasure to observe how this in industry resonates with feedback. 00:48:05.284 --> 00:48:10.485 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>How, how it develops new strategies, and I guess you said you started in 2016. 00:48:10.485 --> 00:48:14.114 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Something you can see a progress in in this industry for sure. 00:48:14.114 --> 00:48:14.414 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Right. 00:48:14.954 --> 00:48:16.364 <v Adam Barowy>Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 00:48:16.364 --> 00:48:27.179 <v Adam Barowy>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. 00:48:27.253 --> 00:48:28.594 <v Adam Barowy>it, it is truly remarkable. 00:48:28.710 --> 00:48:29.010 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Yeah. 00:48:29.070 --> 00:48:31.539 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And, uh, let's hope this, uh, growth continues. 00:48:31.780 --> 00:48:32.530 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Thank you, Adam. 00:48:32.530 --> 00:48:34.630 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And, and yeah, have a great day. 00:48:34.630 --> 00:48:35.289 <v Wojciech Wegrzynski>See you around. 00:48:35.684 --> 00:48:36.175 <v Adam Barowy>Okay. 00:48:36.175 --> 00:48:39.135 <v Adam Barowy>Thank you very much for this opportunity and, and I really had fun talking to you. 00:48:39.268 --> 00:48:39.748 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>And that's it. 00:48:39.748 --> 00:48:40.798 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Thank you for listening. 00:48:40.798 --> 00:48:42.239 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I hope you've enjoyed this talk. 00:48:42.548 --> 00:48:45.219 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Actually, we were both ill during the recording. 00:48:45.248 --> 00:48:46.208 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I had some flu. 00:48:46.208 --> 00:48:47.228 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Adam had some flu. 00:48:47.425 --> 00:48:48.617 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I hope you cannot tell. 00:48:48.829 --> 00:48:51.498 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>The magical fat sound, mastering and editing. 00:48:51.889 --> 00:48:53.909 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>And I'm really happy with toughtened it out. 00:48:54.228 --> 00:48:58.309 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>And we produced this episode is jam packed with information. 00:48:58.309 --> 00:49:00.708 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I thought that was very, very interesting. 00:49:01.309 --> 00:49:07.998 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I highly admire, how they can, the couple, the threats of lithium-ion batteries to find surrogate ways. 00:49:08.210 --> 00:49:11.175 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>To, um, work around this hazards and test them. 00:49:11.206 --> 00:49:14.835 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>It's very difficult, you know, to burn real stuff like batteries. 00:49:14.865 --> 00:49:15.016 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>It's. 00:49:15.148 --> 00:49:15.726 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>not easy. 00:49:15.726 --> 00:49:16.536 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>It's expensive. 00:49:16.565 --> 00:49:23.315 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So finding surrogate ways, like the ones that Adam as shown in the episode is a brilliant way because we need to study them. 00:49:23.315 --> 00:49:24.936 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>We need to study the consequences. 00:49:25.536 --> 00:49:27.905 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>And not always to study the consequences. 00:49:27.905 --> 00:49:32.088 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>You have to really have a thermal runaway or really have a real battery burning. 00:49:32.088 --> 00:49:33.528 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>There it's enough. 00:49:33.559 --> 00:49:36.409 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>If you know what such fire can do. 00:49:36.648 --> 00:49:37.458 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>And then. 00:49:37.878 --> 00:49:39.018 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Measure this consequences. 00:49:39.228 --> 00:49:39.918 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>It's brilliant. 00:49:39.918 --> 00:49:40.938 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>As a fire scientist. 00:49:40.998 --> 00:49:43.608 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I really, really appreciate that. 00:49:44.148 --> 00:49:45.978 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So, um, that's it for today. 00:49:45.978 --> 00:49:48.588 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I hope you've enjoyed this episode. 00:49:49.009 --> 00:49:55.309 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>As usual, thank you to the sponsor of the podcast or for consultants for helping me produce this thing. 00:49:55.699 --> 00:49:56.869 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Before we end. 00:49:57.259 --> 00:50:05.599 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>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. 00:50:05.898 --> 00:50:08.869 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>It was amazing to hear all the feedback from you. 00:50:09.139 --> 00:50:11.028 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>If you have not heard the QA2. 00:50:11.358 --> 00:50:14.568 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I have a lot of comments about the show, the future of the show. 00:50:14.862 --> 00:50:18.132 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>the partnership and other things around the production of the podcast. 00:50:18.132 --> 00:50:23.202 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So if you're interested in the podcast itself, uh, the Q and a too is a good episode for you. 00:50:23.592 --> 00:50:32.713 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>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. 00:50:32.922 --> 00:50:33.492 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>This time. 00:50:34.092 --> 00:50:39.012 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Another one in the series of episodes that changed fire science, which seems to be fan favorite. 00:50:39.012 --> 00:50:42.072 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So I hope you will like that a lot as well. 00:50:42.103 --> 00:50:42.643 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>See you there. 00:50:42.793 --> 00:50:43.182 <v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Bye.

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

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