Using Multiphysics to Predict and Prevent EV Battery Fire

Electric vehicles (EV) offer the exciting possibility to meet the world’s transportation demands in an environmentally sustainable way. Mass adoption could help reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, but the lithium-ion (Li-on) batteries that power them still present unique challenges to designers and engineers, primary among them to ensuring safety against battery fire. To achieve vehicle manufacturer’s ambitious adoption goals, it is necessary to improve the safety of Li-on batteries by better understanding all of the complex, interconnected aspects of their behavior across both normal and extreme duty cycles. Altair is focused on developing a comprehensive understanding of automotive battery safety issues which it has named the Altair Battery Designer project. It combines innovative design methods and tools to model and predict mechanical damage phenomena as well as thermal and electro-chemical runaway. Altair has developed an efficient way to calculate mechanical and short-term thermal response to mechanical abuses, providing accurate computational models and engineer-friendly methods to design a better battery.