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Lithium-Ion Batteries Linked to Airplane Fires
smellsofbikes writes "The National Safety Transportation Board thinks it's possible that lithium-ion batteries caused a fire that destroyed a United Parcel Service airplane on Feb 8, 2006. The FAA already bans non-rechargeable lithium batteries from air shipment because aircraft don't carry fire suppression equipment capable of extinguishing lithium fires. The interesting thing is: these batteries aren't being used or charged, they're just being shipped: spontaneous battery combustion. Is this something that happens in the back of computer stores, or just on airplanes?"
is squishing a lithium ion battery enough to make it catch fire?
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It's not just spontaneous, it's environmental stress. A cargo hold is a cold, low pressure, high vibration environment . This may be the first time a newly-made battery is exposed to these factors, causing infant mortality flaws in manufacture to become aparent. Even after the infant mortality portion of the bathtub curve, reliability calculations typically rate one hour of cargo flight time as worth 10-20 hours on the ground. That flight from china may be equal to 10 days on the ground.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Flashlight geeks have been dealing with this issue for a while.
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http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.ph
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.ph
There have been several documented "venting with flames" of primary CR123A batteries. Rechargeables seem to be a lot more stable, occasional Dell laptop conflagarations notwithstanding.
...can these be modified by someone with nasty goals in such a manner that they might actually bring down an airplane? Disturbing thought if true....
Given how some of my UPS packages arrive looking like they were dragged to my house behind the truck, I would say that it is pretty likely that UPS is doing things to the batteries that my computer store doesn't.
TFA doesn't say whether the one that caught fire in the hand luggage was after landing or not but the rest seem to be post-flight.
Now, when you're on a commercial flight cruising along at 33,000ft, you may only be pressurised to 9,000ft and this, of course, includes your hand luggage.
Is it possible that the depressurisation to 9,000ft alt and the repressurisation on landing resultant expansion and compression cycle of the lithium batteries and causing them to somehow fail?
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
The good news is that it wasn't an exploding MacBook.
Oxygen linked to fires...time to take ACTION!!
It is the NTSB that researches things like this, not the FAA per se. They are very methodical and precise with their work. They are slow to publish thier findings, this doesn't mean they are slow to identify the cause, just very carefull that they have come to the correct conclusion. Check out the NTSB aircraft accident database, this contains detail over every aircraft accident reasearched by them for several decades ( 1962 ) http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/query.asp
"Tolerance is a virtue of a man without convictions." G.K.Chesterton
I've seen it with my own eyes. I wrote the embedded software (8051 C) for a robotic bone lengthener / deformity corrector in the early 90's, it was powered by Lithium batteries that ran the motors and provided 5V for all the electronics. On more than one occasion (during development) we had Lithium batteries just go up in fire and smoke, for no apparent reason. It caused us a lot of worry to say the least, especially since any bad and ready to blow cells were packed into packs with surrounding cells.. to add to the fire. This was 12 years ago, so I am sure Lithium batteries are better than ever, but it doesn't suprise me to hear about them going up in flames.
UPS Dictionary says .....
Fragile (fra-gil-lay) from early French n. To toss about with reckless abandon.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
How about another airplane disaster movie? I'm thinking of calling it...
"Li-ons on planes"
Electric RC flyers have been dealing with this issue for a while.
0 9187
Here is an informational thread about lipo batteries:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2
One of the failure modes of a Li-Ion battery is what the industry calls "vent with flame", or what everyone else calls, a fire. (A very spectacular one, at that - not just ignition, but the fire actually shoots out like a jet).
Li-Ion batteries are extremely volatile and sensitive, which is why good batteries have a variety of protective circuits on them (or can have) - e.g., physical distortion (detects if the battery balloons), over temperature (charging/discharge), over current, unsafe low voltage (if the battery voltage falls too low, you can't charge it safely), and many more. That's also why their charge regimen is so complex (charge at constant current to ~90% capacity, then constant voltage charge to 100%. Then stop all charging until capacity is around 90% again, then restart CV charge - this is why the first 80% can happen relatively quickly, while the last 20% can often take as long as it took to get to 80% in the first place) since they need charge controllers and "smart chips" to monitor the state of the battery.
Usually these events happen when the battery is actually used, but there isn't anything to say that it can happen otherwise. Those protective circuits require power, and they get their power from the battery while outside the device. And since you cannot store Li-Ion batteries discharged very well, they are often charged at the factory, during assembly and final sale. A nice short somewhere along the line and battery will vent with flame.
There's a reason why most LiIon batteries have hard to get at terminals or come with protective covers. It's not for convenience, but more for during storage/shipping, so the terminals don't get shorted.
Oh yeah, those protective circuits are optional - not all batteries have every one (some may not need it or find a way to protect it in another way - battery distortion can be handled by having the battery having to fit in a slot - if it can't fit, well...). Third party ultra cheap batteries may have *no* protective circuits at all (hence those "Nokia Exploding Batteries").
Check out these photos here of lithium polymer batteries (commonly used in r/c models) in action... SUPER FUN HAPPY BURN THE HOUSE DOWN TOYS!
I'm not fat, just big boned...
* Water may be used to extinguish packaging fires if batteries have not ruptured; water is not an effective extinguishing agent for a battery fire.
* For small fires involving the battery [extinguishing] media such as Lith-X or copper powder may be used, but should be applied with a long handled tool. Do not use CO2 or Halon directly on a battery fire as the exposed surface of the contained lithium may react with these materials.
* For larger fires involving lithium batteries, copious amounts of water may be applied, from a safe distance, to control the fire and protect adjacent materials and facilities.
Simply put, water won't do the trick. It may contain the fire (by dousing the flames / removing its heat from the equation), but it won't extinguish it. Also, dumping water onto a battery fire just causes a lot of steam. Depending on the size of fire and the amount of water (since the key term used above is copious), you could turn a sealed airplane into a pressure cooker in just a few minutes, and no one is going to be happy about that.
Informatus Technologicus
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..
"Here's something you can try at home if you're a total skeptic"
Skepticism. . like exploding batteries. . is dangerous. .
I've heard of the strangest things blamed for airplane crashes. The fact is that some pretty smart people are put on the investigation of a crash, paid handsomely and given a deadline to produce an answer. Their jobs might depend on it. As the investigation progresses, theres always a 'most likely cause' that changes. When the deadline arrives, the most likely cause of the day becomes the answer.
Some things only happen on airplane crashes.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Several airlines have just announced that they are banning the in-flight use of Dell laptops.
I have pretty extensive experience with lithium and lithium ion/polymer/prismatic(and otherwise)/LIFn cells)
They are dangerous. Lithium polymers can create an extremely high temp fire if shorted, dunked in water, etc. Lithium ions can (and will) explode if shorted in water or otherwise. The case on it can't expand like the lithium polymers wrapping which allows it to burn instead of turn into a crappy grenade.
Lithium cells (like the new 1.5v cells out for cameras and other digital technologies) don't have as high of a current capability as recharable lithiums, but offer extreme weight->low current capacity. They get hot very quickly and catch fire very fast. It is possible that the plastic wrap on the lithiums in question was damaged and shorted on a metal item unless it was dropped. As you see, the cells can be crushed which will cause a fire in very short order.
And by the way, don't put out a battery fire with water or it will short other batteries out and compound the problem. What kinda moron posts that junk?
Lithium technology is safe if treated right. I guarantee you the voltage matching or cutoff circuitry is what lead to the dell laptop issues, and that the lithium cells on the UPS flight were wet or damaged in some other way as to cause the problem. I would hate to see lithium batteries be shipped via HASMAT trucks, but unless we start hiring more people that can read english labels that say "do not wet, fragile" they may have to be...
-JNY
Not in the volumes needed to extinguish a burning battery:
As it says, water is not effective if the battery itself is burning.
Airplane fire extinguishers are almost universally halon-based, as halons don't corrode aircraft components, and they work at low concentrations: you can do things like discharge an extingusher into a running engine, or put out a fire in the cockpit without suffocating the pilots.
Here, "copious amounts of water" means the sort of water flow that a pumper truck attached to a hydrant can provide.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
That is most likely what they'll let RECHARGEABLE Li batteries onboard but not full capacity non-rechargeable Li batteries. With all the ways the batteries can be damaged before they're put on the planes, there's too much of a risk of fire from latent fires due to damaged cells.
This is also why there aren't lots of fires in the backrooms of computer stores. All those laptops not only don't have charged batteries but they've probably already been inspected for damaged packaging.
Atleast that's my theory.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
One of the reasons I submitted this story is that I just bought a house that's at roughly 3500 meters (11,000 feet) elevation. UPS is shipping jillions of batteries, and obviously this isn't THAT common, but I still wonder about me taking up my laptop, and my friends taking up theirs. I wonder even more about flying up there in a Cessna -- not much higher altitude, but where's the knee of the safe/explode curve? (Is it a curve? or is it linear with altitude? or logarithmic, given that's how pressure drops? I'd expect it'd drop off with temperature, but if that's true, temperature drops somewhat faster than air pressure, so why are these happening at all?)
With all that said, it's unsettling that a battery has *anything* going on in it when it's just sitting there in a brown paper box. Do Li-ion batteries have vents, like old lead-acid batteries? Can they evolve gas? (If so, what happens to their chemistry afterwards? it's not like they can recapture hydrogen offgassed: do they lose efficiency over time from this?)
I know much less about batteries than I thought I did.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Just look at any R/C Forum or wbe site (or battery university) for horror stories about these batteries. I use them, but as soon as I see any bulging or swelling of a pack I get rid of it. I personally know a guy who lost his entire garage (and part of his house) from a fire during recharging (you should never leave them un-attended).
They are great batteries that are light with lots of power, but they are quite finicky. I always charge as slow as possible and use a temp probe to shut everything down if it gets too hot.
All that being said, I wonder how they could ignite if they are not in a charge or discharge (besides normal dishcharge as they sit unused) while in a cargo hold. I would think (no, I did not RTFA but hey this is Slashdot) they would need to be mutilated or highly disturbed in some way to catch fire.
Repant. Thy end is sheer.
It makes one wonder why everyone's touting electric/hybrid vehicles that run off of li-ion or polymer batteries. If people (erroneously) thought that hydrogen cars would do a Hindenberg in their driveway, wait til they find out about this.
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I know I've seen it written here before, but there's an old chemistry saw that certainly rings true.
"The are two types of chemists: Those who have never worked with Lithium, and those who are scared to death of it."
Li-Poly batteries are used a lot in RC aircraft. Here is a link to a page about LiPo fires (with a link to some videos) Lipo Fire info.
Lipos are used a lot in RC flying, but you have to be very careful with them. If they short, they will start to buldge a bit, and can catch fire. Also, LiPos can only be discharged so far, until they are useless (I believe under the 3.7 volt level). If you are interested about rechargable batteries, RC people are the ones to look at. (that includes NIMH, NICD, and LIPO)
Back around 1992, I used to work for a Kodak dealer who sold the Kodak DSC200 series digital cameras. They were a Nikon 35mm camera body with a digital film back and Li based rechargable battery pack.
My boss was on a client site setting up to run a demo, these cameras cost AU$30k each, it was sitting on a counter waiting to be hooked up when it burst into flames.
While I wasn't present for the actual fire, I did see the melted unit afterward when packing it to be sent back to Rochester for tests.
This has been a *known* issue for a very long time.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
I don't think the modest pressure drop (from 14.7 psi at sea level to 9.5 psi at 3500 m) is going to cause accidents.
I don't know if I'd categorize that as a "modest" drop. That's 1/3 of an atmosphere. That's low enough pressure to manifest measurable, visible symptoms of hypoxia in humans not accustomed to the high altitude. Airplanes are forbidden from flying above 10,500 MSL for more than 30 minutes without carrying oxygen. Living at 11,000 full time would definitely affect sea-level folk, and I don't think it's too much of a stretch to consider that it may affect other pressurized items, too.
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Someone inform David Ellis & Samuel Jackson! This has "Snakes on a Plane II" written all over it.