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Active TRL 4 (started at 2, targeting 6)
The “worst-case” fire identified by the Orion and HLS Programs is that of a Li-ion battery undergoing thermal runaway. In fact, a Li-ion battery fire was used to develop requirements for all the fire response equipment carried on-board and to evaluate the effect of an elevated %O2/reduced pressure on the propagation of such a fire. The purpose of this activity is to conduct ground-based tests of the thermal runaway of Li-ion batteries in single pouch cell and complete tablet and laptop computer configurations.
Key Performance Parameters:
The unique feature of this testing is that the heat release rate, gaseous species released, particulate loading, etc. can be quantified with tablets under different conditions (state of charge, storage configuration, etc.). This data uniquely determines the outcomes of the event that would impact a closed spacecraft environment. CFD models of fire events that are being developed (the Saffire experiments in Cygnus are being modeled, for example) would use this ground-based data as input to model a battery thermal runaway event in a spacecraft. Therefore, gaseous species, particulate, temperature, pressure rise, etc. can be tracked in the spacecraft.
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