Lithium Battery Explosion

[lucaperazzolli]

A friend of mine is really close to the first engine start with an RV-8, he choosed a Lithium Ion battery for weight saving. I'm very conservative about and now I know why ...

This happened at first charge, we were in hangar and the new battery was attached to the charger as per instruction, the charger was approved for that battery. The temperature of the battery during the charging process was normal.

After 30 minutes the battery started to melt with a lot of smoke, an incredible quantity of white smoke. The toxic smell was intolerable, we moved the battery outside of the hangar (wasn't easy) that remained full of smoke for awhile. The temperature of the battery was incredible hight ! Melting continued for 20 minutes, hot battery temperature remained for 2 hours !

I really can't imagine that this could happen into the firewall compartment or, worse, into the fuselage.

[ChiefPilot]

It's interesting that the case isn't even more deformed/melted - having seen smaller lithium-ion batteries give up the ghost, I would have thought a battery this size would have completely melted. Perhaps not all the cells failed?

Anyway, thanks for sharing these! Great reason to either stick with the PC-680 or jump to LiFePO4 batteries!

[rocketbob]

That's a lithium ion battery, not a lithium iron battery. I would never put a battery in an airplane that is 1. lithum ion and 2. without a built-in management circuit.

[Andy Hill]

Hi Luke

I think your lesson was also learned by Boeing with the 787 and Lithium-Ion

As above, in an RV it is not the way ahead - LiFePO4 seems way safer, and there is a lot of experience on this forum with regards to specific types and now years of operation.

Can one ask what research led your friend to this type / model of battery?

[Mike H]

Looks to me like this battery is in fact a LiFePO4 battery. See attached link to tech specs from the manufacturer.
http://www.skyrichbattery.com/p9/Fre...ons/pages.html

[Low Pass]

Thanks for sharing. My reading tells me that most of the failure of Li based batteries seems to occur with over or improper charging. I'm guessing something wasn't as it should have been with this process in this case.

Re. the LiFePO4, most brands I'm familiar with come charged. And further, they hold a charge for a very, very long time relatively speaking. So, you buy one of these, and it sits on the shelf 3, 4 mos, don't assume it needs to be charged.

1 yr 9 mos on Ballistic brand LiFePO4 and pleased with the performance.

[NovaBandit]

It does look like it was a LiFePo4 battery. Had it been a standard LiPo, it wouldn't have just melted, it would have burst into flames.

I haven't been able to find on the SkyRich site if these batteries have an internal BMS or not. I'm suspecting that they don't.

[Kahuna]

Was this an "Explosion" or simply a meltdown from heat? Was there any debris or chemicals at any distance from the battery?

[BlackhawkSP]

You know when everyone started talking about how light/better these new batteries are I started to post something about using extreme caution, but was afraid I'd step on some toes, or get some manufacturer mad at me. My instincts were spot on. While in the military, I had a good pilot buddy that was put in the hospital for a day when a Lithium battery for a military radio sitting on a table near him exploded; and I mean exploded. Everyone there thought that someone had thrown a grenade simulator into the tent. It was that loud. He had a possible ear drum rupture, and shrapnel injuries from the casing. Evidently the casing had sprung a leak and the moisture reacted with the lithium and caused it to explode. I will not be using one of these in any airplane of mine until the technology gets way more proven.

[eisnerrv4]

Hi Luca.

I'm glad this happened ouside of the airplane for sure. Was this Francesco's orange RV-8 that we are talking about?

Tell everyone I said Hi!