Thermal runaway propagation behavior and energy flow distribution analysis of 280 Ah LiFePO4 battery

Thermal runaway propagation (TRP) of lithium iron phosphate batteries (LFP) has become a key technical problem due to its risk of causing large-scale fire accidents. This work systematically investigates the TRP behavior of 280 Ah LFP batteries with different SOCs through experiments. Three different SOCs including 40 %, 80 %, and 100 % are chosen. In addition to key TRP characteristic parameters such as temperature, TRP time and speed are analyzed, more importantly, the energy flow distribution during the TRP of large-size LFP module is also revealed. The results indicate that among the three groups of modules, TRP occurs only in the module with 100 % SOC, which is attributed to the higher internal energy (666.11 kJ) and heat transfer power (264.07 W). For the module with 100 % SOC, the TRP time interval fluctuates from 667 s to 1305 s, and the TRP speed is in the range of 0.05–0.12 mm/s. Furthermore, the energy flow distribution indicates that more than 75 % of the energy is used to heat battery itself, and approximately 20 % is carried out by ejecta. Less than 10 % can trigger neighboring batteries into thermal runaway. This work may provide important guidance for the process safety design of energy storage power stations.