Lei Chen, SABIC
A key challenge to Electric Vehicle (EV) battery pack design is the battery pack structure which includes battery cooling and cell separation to prevent propagation of the whole battery pack in case of failure of one cell. PIN FR performance engineering polymers structures enable this, whilst ensuring lightweight and electrical insulation. The FR performance of the battery pack structure is key to passing China and UN battery fire safety standards which test the whole battery pack in abusive thermal events.
SABIC’s PIN FR glass fibre reinforced polypropylene compounds can prevent fire spread from thermal runaway of one cell, with a 2mm thickness between 18650 lithium ion cells. When used as battery pack enclosure materials, 4mm FR polypropylene and other engineering thermoplastics compounds can also withhold the abusive temperature and pressure exposure in the UL2596 thermal runway test. Such polymer-based solutions enable lightweight and mechanically effective EV battery pack design.