New Battery Safety Laboratory in Borås
A brand new battery safety lab has opened at RISE in Borås. The laboratory is equipped to evaluate battery systems for thermal propagation, fire exposure, mechanical abuse, vibration, cycling, and climate variation. The lab’s water and smoke cleaning systems are world-leading, to meet environmental and sustainability requirements. The lab is part of the collaboration Swedish Electric Transport Laboratory (SEEL), with three test facilities in Sweden.
The battery safety lab was built and developed to meet the market’s needs for research, development, and testing. Further, there are three areas connected to the lab to complete the offer to customers and partners:
- Involvement in development of standards
- Inspection to ensure the quality of product manufacturing
- Certification in various product areas
Environment and sustainability are crucial for the development of the laboratory. Minimization of emissions was a central aspect in the construction of the new safety lab. The lab’s water and smoke cleaning systems are world-leading. This is to meet the environmental and sustainability requirements from the customers as well as for RISE. The emissions are handled in an advanced cleaning facility, where smoke particles and toxins in the extinguishing water are separated and deposited.
The lab enables extreme testing. The lab’s construction is designed to withstand extreme tests with battery systems. In these tests, the risk of explosion is high, and there are often powerful and uncontrolled fires that are difficult, and sometimes impossible, to extinguish. When electric vehicles are tested, they must be possible to provoke and expose to extreme stress. For example, it is necessary to be able to set fire to a vehicle under controlled conditions and then let the fire take its natural course.
“The battery safety lab is equipped with the market’s leading test rigs.”
What distinguishes the battery safety lab from outdoor testing is that the lab offers both a confidential and controlled test environment with good conditions for repeatability. This is fundamental for test results to be reliable.
The equipment in the laboratory is unique. The battery safety lab is equipped with the market’s leading test rigs. The lab has powerful vibration equipment, walk-in climate chambers, cycling equipment, explosion-proof abuse halls outfitted to analyze fire and smoke, as well as equipment for various mechanical abuse. They, for example, enable evaluation of products while charging them, exposure to short circuits, shaking, mechanical force deformation, extreme temperature, and humidity, as well as fire. The largest test hall is 12 m by 14 m by 20 m (W, L, H), protected against explosion pressure and can handle fires up to 8 MW. In addition, there are areas for sample preparation, post-mortem labs, conference rooms, and offices. The customer can follow their testing either remotely or on-site.
Franz Evegren
franz.evegren@ri.se
For more information, visit www.ri.se/en.
