U of A researchers working to prevent EV battery fires
One of the most critical safety concerns for electric vehicles is keeping their batteries cool.
With high temperatures like we see here in Arizona, it can lead to dangerous consequences.
However, new research at the University of Arizona proposes a way to prevent these issues.
“Recently in the last couple of years, we’ve seen a tremendous increase of fires in electric vehicles that are associated with battery overheating,” said Professor Vitaliy Yurkiv.
U of A researchers are developing a framework that uses A.I. and machine learning models to sense, predict and identify lithium-ion battery overheating, known as thermal runaway.
Their goal is that in the future this algorithm could be integrated into an electric vehicle’s battery management system to stop a battery from overheating, and therefore protect drivers, cars, and anything else at risk of being around a battery that could catch fire.
With this algorithm, researchers are hoping they can stop the battery before it reaches that critical stage.
“It is important everywhere in the whole world, but here in Tucson it’s extremely important because of our high temperatures,” said Yurkiv. “When we are able to identify an overheating battery in advance, we will be able to send a signal to electric vehicle battery management system to stop car or to lower the load on the electric vehicle.”
These researchers are working with Tucson based battery companies to do their experiments and test out their new algorithm.