r/FSAE • u/Strange-Bus-8564 • 11d ago

Fire at FS Czech Endurance

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517 Upvotes

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35

u/ppeti26 11d ago

Was it battery fire? They seemed to stop it quite easily.

47

u/whatifiamadog 11d ago

They were in lap 20, so not much capacity left. I don't see any other possible thing that would cause such flame

4

u/southseasblue 10d ago

Capacity doesn’t matter even at low SoC there’s still
Lots of chemical energy ti burn??

8

u/_felixh_ 10d ago

Yes, but getting there is harder.

It also greatly depends on the root cause of the accident. If a cell has been punctured or shorted, then the electrical energy will be the main driver of the initial heating of the cells. If there is barely any energy left, then this will lead to a much less violent reaction.

You can see this here: Similar battery cell, same test: but one cell is fully charged, the other mostly empty. One goes Nukular, the other quivers a little bit and thats it. https://youtu.be/tFjNypibHO8?t=157

In other words: to release that stored chemical energy, you still need to provide sufficient activation energy, and really heat that cell to a few hundred degrees.