Why Does Battery Pack Overheat?

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Why Does Battery Pack Overheat?-Lithium batteries are currently not only used as the main power source for consumer electronic products, but also applied to electric bicycles, electric vehicles, energy storage and other related fields. However, with the substantial increase in battery capacity as well as energy density, but the safety issue has never been effectively solved, so the problems related to battery packs have also received extensive attention from both inside and outside the industry.

Introductory

Battery packs are very important in the use of mobile devices and electronic equipment, and with the development of technology, have expanded their applications to a variety of fields such as clean energy, energy storage and new energy vehicles. However, the safety issues related to battery packs should also be noted, such as overheating may cause multiple negative impacts such as performance degradation, electrolyte evaporation from the cells, cell failure and even thermal runaway. Therefore, how to manage and control the temperature of the battery pack is an important task for thermal management engineers, who need to research and develop from multiple perspectives in order to ensure the smooth operation of the battery pack and avoid safety risks.

Cause Analysis

Battery aging, charging and discharging, external environment and its own design defects may lead to the battery pack heat dissipation is not timely, resulting in overheating of the battery pack, which makes the battery performance degradation, and even the risk of thermal runaway.

Battery Aging

With the prolonged use of the battery pack, the chemical and physical properties of the battery cells will be transformed, causing an increase in the internal resistance of the battery, which results in the accumulation of a large amount of heat in the charging and discharging process, and ultimately leads to overheating of the battery pack, which further accelerates the aging of the battery. At the same time the wrong use, maintenance or charging habits may lead to overcharging and over-discharging of the battery, which will also lead to the aging of the battery, making the battery pack overheating consequences.

Charge and Discharge

Charging and discharging rate is an important factor affecting the heat dissipation of the battery pack, too fast charging will make the current flow into the battery cell at a high rate, accelerating the rate of chemical reaction of the battery pack, gathering a large amount of heat in a short period of time, and ultimately making the battery pack overheat.

At the same time, over-charging or over-discharging is also another major factor leading to overheating of the battery, charging and discharging voltages exceeding or lower than the upper and lower limits may lead to irreversible chemical reactions within the battery cell, releasing a large amount of heat.

External Environment

Extreme high temperature and high humidity will also make it easier to overheat inside the battery pack, accelerating the rate of chemical reaction inside the battery, the rapid generation of heat and unstable heat accumulation.

Design Defects

Improper selection of heat dissipation materials, improper design of heat dissipation systems, and uneven runner design can all lead to poor heat dissipation energy of the battery pack, so ensuring the reasonableness of the heat dissipation design is a prerequisite to ensure the safety performance of the battery pack.

Overall, the overheating problem is the result of a combination of factors, which should be fully considered during the design, manufacture and use to ensure the safe and smooth operation of the battery pack.

Hazards and Risks

Overheating of battery packs is a very serious problem, which not only affects the performance of the battery and the functionality of the equipment, but also can even affect personal safety and environmental hazards in serious cases. The following are the possible results of an overheated battery pack

Battery Performance

High temperatures increase the rate of battery discharge and the resulting loss of stored energy, reducing battery performance and power output. Excessive temperatures can damage the electrolyte, causing it to decompose and evaporate, destabilising the cell and thus further exacerbating the battery overheating problem. Chemical reactions, if too violent, can even lead to battery explosions, impacting the power supply system during the charging process and affecting the stability of the power supply.

Equipment damage

Overheating will melt and damage the key components and lines of the equipment, resulting in equipment damage. So that the equipment is permanently damaged, the production and operation of the plant has a serious impact, resulting in substantial economic losses.

Environmental impact

Damage to the battery will release chemicals, toxic gases or burning debris, not only on personal safety has a negative impact, but also on the environment will have serious consequences.

Therefore, when overheating is likely to occur, measures should be taken to isolate, ventilate and physically cool down the battery to avoid the possible consequences of overheating to the maximum extent possible.

Prevention and Solutions

It is very important to prevent and solve the overheating problem of the battery pack, we can take the following prevention and solution to ensure the safe and smooth operation of the battery pack.

Firstly, we should design and manufacture the battery pack reasonably, adopt heat sinks, water cooling boards and other related products to ensure the high efficiency of the heat dissipation equipment and reduce the possibility of heat accumulation inside the battery pack. And can be added in the design process of temperature control system, timely grasp of the battery pack temperature changes, when the temperature rises to the preset threshold automatically stop the operation of the equipment.

Next is the charging and discharging control, the use of advanced intelligent automatic control system, reasonable control of charging and discharging speed, to avoid excessive charging and discharging caused by the accumulation of heat.

The last is the regular inspection and maintenance of the battery pack to ensure the normal operation of the battery pack. The package by overhauling the battery capacity, voltage and internal resistance and other relevant parameters, regular inspection, can find the relevant problems to take reasonable measures to eliminate potential safety hazards in a timely manner.

Through the implementation of the above prevention and solutions, can significantly reduce the battery’s hidden danger.

Conclusion

This paper focuses on the importance of battery packs in various industries and the problems that may be caused by overheating. With the increased demand for clean energy and new energy equipment in various industries, the application fields of battery packs will continue to expand. However, the problem of heat dissipation in battery packs is still not effectively addressed, and therefore scientific prevention and related solutions are needed to deal with it.

With more efficient heat dissipation technology, temperature monitoring systems and related advanced electrode materials, the reliability and safety of battery packs will be better guaranteed.