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DBI investigates the fire safety of batteries in ferry project

Batteries are not only making their way into our buildings. They are […]

Fire
Sep 2016

e-ferry-web

Batteries are not only making their way into our buildings. They are also making inroads into the transport sector.

They can be found in, for example, hybrid cars and also in ferries, which use battery packs as a supplement to their diesel engines. And now, the first all-electric ferry is on its way to Denmark. It is being planned for the so-called E-Ferry Project, which is an EU project. The project is still in embryo and, more specifically, work is being carried out on the routes between the Danish islands of Ærø and Funen and between Ærø and Als.

It is hoped that the electric ferries will be put into operation in 2017. DBI is involved in the project and is focusing on fire safety with regard to batteries as well as the lightweight plastic components the owners would like to use in the construction of the ferry to reduce its weight.

– There are EU standards for batteries in which fire safety in relation to operational situations has been incorporated, but they do not deal with fire safety in the event of an accident occurring. For example, there is a big difference between handling a single battery in a safe way and handling a large bank of batteries that are involved in a fire. Battery systems have slipped under the radar slightly in relation to fire safety since batteries come under the standardisation organisation CENELEC, which normally doesn’t work with determining the impact on fire parameters such as heat and smoke generation. However, these parameters should be determined in order to assess the fire risk in the case of an accident, says Martin Pauner, who is a civil engineer with DBI, and involved in the E-Ferry Project.

Just as on land, batteries entail a lot of unknown factors in relation to fire safety at sea: How do different types of battery react to saltwater, when they get damaged during a sailing or if a fire breaks out elsewhere on the ferry. And, how good are the different batteries’ cells at preventing the spread of the fire in the event of ‘thermal runaway’ in an individual cell?

These are just some of the questions that DBI will attempt to find an answer to in relation to the project.

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