Battery Fires

[lenny]

Tube union threatens strike unless e-bikes are banned from London Underground after platform blaze

Tube union threatens strike unless e-bikes are banned from London Underground

The fire at Rayners Lane station sent toxic fumes billowing across the station and caused temporary disruption to the Piccadilly and Metropolitan lines

www.standard.co.uk

London Underground passengers at risk over e-bikes - union

Aslef union says it is considering balloting members for a strike, over e-bikes on the Tube.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[lenny]

Tube union threatens strike unless e-bikes are banned from London Underground after platform blaze

Tube union threatens strike unless e-bikes are banned from London Underground

The fire at Rayners Lane station sent toxic fumes billowing across the station and caused temporary disruption to the Piccadilly and Metropolitan lines

www.standard.co.uk

London Underground passengers at risk over e-bikes - union

Aslef union says it is considering balloting members for a strike, over e-bikes on the Tube.

www.bbc.co.uk

TSSA walks out of TfL meeting over refusal to ban e-bikes

TSSA walks out of TfL meeting over refusal to ban e-bikes

TSSA Health and Safety representatives stormed out of a meeting with Transport for London management on Tuesday after TfL refused to issue an immediate ban on electronic bikes following the fire at Rayners Lane

www.tssa.org.uk

 

[lenny]

Sadiq Khan demands book exchanges reinstated in Tube stations amid fire safety row
TfL had ordered the libraries’ removal for fire safety reasons outlined by the LFB - but Mayor says he is hoping for ‘very swift announcement of a U-turn’

Sadiq demands book exchanges reinstated in Tube stations amid fire safety row

TfL had ordered the libraries’ removal for fire safety reasons outlined by the LFB - but Mayor says he is hoping for ‘very swift announcement of a U-turn’

www.standard.co.uk

 

[Ajax]

Great thread, but it seems to me there should be several categories of e-bike/ battery fires.

As well as the types of fires there should already be advice on how to best avoid,
or even on what to do if a fire starts, besides run.

Are there extinguishers that will contain a battery fire?

Would running an e-bike without proper cut-off brakes cause the motor to overheat,
eg if ordinary disc brake levers were used to slow the bike whilst the motor was still being powered?

As another thought :

These days, you have controllers that will operate as either 36v or 48v.
What would happen if you had both batteries, 36v and 48v and then confused their chargers.
What would happen if you attempted to charge the 36v with a 48v charger, or charge a 48v with a 36v charger.
Would the over-voltage or under-voltage protection still work?

You would not want to try this just to find out, but have these scenarios been tested, as controlled experiments by the professionals? 0

 

[AndyBike]

Are there extinguishers that will contain a battery fire?

There are, but they are seriously seriously expensive.

At a pinch, you could throw a large fire blanket over the area and try to deal with anything that catches- wood,carpet etc with a standard extinguisher.
Obviously the harmful smoke will be a problem, and that might make any DIY firefighting problematic.

 

[Woosh]

Renault (cars) have a simple battery fire fighting system. They fit a funnel to the battery compartment with an adhesive cover. If fire breaks out, firefighters would just flood the battery compartment with plain water. The system kills the fire in a few minutes. I suppose it could be adapted for ebike batteries.

 

[AntonyC]

Why wait for the fire brigade? For ebike-scale batteries there are several efforts researching insulating materials for filling the spaces between cells to impede propagation. I'd like to see them try out a capillary foam flooded with a low-temperature gel: when the first cell overheats it's cooled by a pack's worth of gel boiling off then insulated by the dry foam. I don't think I've come across research into dumping heat effectively (as opposed to safely).

P.S. it takes around 100g of water / gel vapourising to absorb the energy from a fully charged 21700 cell burning up.