Battery fire and thermal runaway testing is not one test. It is a family of procedures - overcharge, heating, nail penetration, crush, external short and propagation - each with its own rig.
This article lists how our published battery test equipment maps onto the test families used in battery safety work. It does not restate standard requirements: work from the official standard text.
The test families
- Overcharge and over-discharge: an electrical abuse test run on a charge-discharge system.
- External heating: a cell or module heated to the point of runaway inside a chamber.
- Nail penetration: a steel nail driven through a cell at a controlled speed.
- Crush: a controlled mechanical load applied to a cell, module or pack.
- Combustion and fire resistance: a specimen exposed to a defined heat or flame source.
- Propagation: a triggered cell made to spread to its neighbours inside a pack.
What the equipment has to provide
- A controlled energy source for abuse tests, with the parameters recorded.
- Mechanical actuation with a defined speed and force for nail and crush tests.
- Temperature, voltage and, where required, gas or pressure monitoring.
- A containment design that keeps the operator and the room outside the event.
How a nail penetration rig is specified
The variables are the nail diameter, the driving speed, the penetration depth and the force or speed hold. Our published nail penetration machine drives the nail under program control and records the parameters alongside the test; a crush machine applies the load with a programmable rate and hold.
What we ask a buyer to send
- The cell or pack format and its energy content.
- The test family and the standard revision.
- The measurements the report has to contain.
- The containment and venting conditions of the test room.
Equipment capability is described from the manufacturer's published product descriptions. Certification and compliance documents are available on request.