Like the title says, why are batteries at risk to catching fire on planes? Why do they ask you to remove batteries from your luggage?
In: 20
If you are in a pressurized cabin of an airplane at 70 degrees F, it’s nice and comfortable.
In the cargobay, it’s way below freezing and the air pressure is very low.
The cells were at normal air pressure when they were loaded, so going up causes some parts to expand.
The cells were warm when they were loaded, so when they get below zero, some parts shrink when they go up.
There are separators inside a cell that keep the cathode from touching the anode. In our desperate attempt to squeeze every little milli-amp-hour of range out f the fixed size of cell, the “overlap” in the separators is…thin.
You only need one cell to “go off” into a death-spiral, before it heats up its neighbors to a tipping point.
When moving lithium packs using “ground shipping”, they still get cold in the depths of winter, but at least the air pressure stays the same.
If you need to ship lithium cells or packs, do it using ground shipping in the spring or fall.
Or not, I’m not the shipping police…
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