Lithium-Ion Batteries Aren’t Safe to Fly

The pressure on the aviation industry to ban the transportation of lithium is growing.
Ion batteries, like cargo on flight MH370 for all passengers --
Carry a plane.
Long before the disappearance of the Boeing 777 in Malaysia, there was growing concern that the large amount of packaging of these batteries would pose a potential safety hazard.
Last fall, the Federal Aviation Administration conducted a series of tests at the Atlantic City Technical Center to simulate the consequences of overheating of the cargo compartment battery of the passenger plane.
The test was carried out on a 1960 old-fashioned Boeing 727 body.
They involve lithium in different sizes and combinations-
Manufacturers regularly ship ion batteries for electronic products from mobile phones to laptops.
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The ion Battery reached the cockpit in less than ten minutes.
If this happens at the cruising height during the actual flight, rather than during the ground test, the pilot will have to wear an oxygen mask, as will the passenger.
Even so, survival is questionable.
Halon 1301 is the standard fire extinguishing agent used on aircraft and has no effect on lithium
Ion battery fire
Another test result was more violent: the door between the cabin and the cockpit was blown away by an explosion.
The FAA test experts reviewed the International Civil Aviation Organization (Montreal-
Headquartered in the United Nations agency overseeing international air travel, the European security agency and other agencies in the aircraft and battery industries.
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The most challenging thing is what will lead to lithium --
The ion batteries overheat and trigger what is called \"heat out of control\", which is a virtual fuse of the battery and its shell.
During the FAA test, the batteries were either \"cooked\"-to put them at a very high temperature-or overcharged, causing them to heat up to 190 degrees Celsius, causing heat to get out of control.
Of course, intentional forced failure like this will undoubtedly lead to doubts about how the process started.
The problem is that in a real battery emergency it\'s hard to determine how it starts.
Of course, the most expensive and eye-catching battery failure to date, resulting in a battery failure to stop the entire Boeing 787 Dreamliner fleet, is a good proof of this difficulty.
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This happened in early 2013, when the heat in lithium was out of control.
A 787 ion battery of a Japanese airline parked at the gate of Boston Logan Airport.
After an emergency, the National Transportation Safety Board, Boeing and a so-
Brain farm called expert \".
Even so, it\'s not possible to replicate what\'s going on in Boston, where the heat out of control has started in one battery and then spread into other batteries.
On March 2013, it was announced that the installed battery was adjusted at 787-
Ending the change in fleet grounded --
\"The battery box will be placed in a new housing made of stainless steel,\" Boeing said.
This housing separates the battery from other devices in the electronic carrier.
It will also ensure that there is no fire inside the housing, thus adding a layer of protection to the battery system.
The housing is equipped with a direct vent to carry battery steam outside the aircraft.
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In other words, the question is not whether the battery will fail again.
This redesign is based on their possible assumptions and the solution is to ensure that the safety of the aircraft is not compromised if they do so.
A month after this announcement, unaccustomed daylight was forced into lithium-
Ion battery industry
Deborah Hersman, chairman of the National Transportation Security Council, called two people.
Daytime public hearings to track lithium history
Ion batteries for aircraft.
(No one needed such powerful industrial technology before Boeing chose technology for the 787 --
Scale battery pack-generate 1.
5 MW, enough to power 400 houses.
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The representative of the battery manufacturer is obviously uncomfortable.
Some say they are unable to answer questions due to intellectual property rights involved.
In general, it is clear that no one is willing to say that the technology is mature or 100% reliable --
Or fully understand the behavior of the battery.
One witness said that during the development of the battery, \"the fault occurred in a way that the designer had never imagined.
Hersman himself is also asking if they can define failure, but it seems that no one can define failure because it happens in many different ways.
One witness took the initiative to say, \"you \'d better burn some batteries and know what they look like.
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This is a vivid picture of hell, and there is a technology that is too attractive for early adopters, like Boeing, because lithium-
Ion batteries provide more energy than any other type of battery for their weight, which is the enemy on the plane.
(After seeing the plight of Boeing, Airbus gave up the idea of using lithium --
Ion batteries from rival A350.
In fact, the development of lithium
Ion technology is driven so fast that it exceeds the capacity of the FAA regulators to know when they can freeze the safety standards they are preparing, to prove that 787 is a safe flight.
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I suggested to her that there still seems to be no consensus on what these safety standards should be.
There is a dilemma, she admits: \"How much development does it take before you start setting standards?
She added: \"What we \'ve heard is that they\'re using industry-standard test standards and then they\'re also saying that they\'re using state-of-the-art test standards.
There is a disconnect between these two things.
For me, \"state of art\" refers to real cutting-edge testing standards, but \"it will take years for industry standards to be completed.
When they finished [in 787], they did not retroactively apply to aircraft that are being certified.
\"To be sure, 40-
Pound industry-
Strength battery pack designed to supply power to systems of large aircraft such as 787 and a batch of lithium-
Ion batteries for consumer electronics such as laptops and mobile phones.
In the case of goods like those on flight MH370, it is important that they are packaged in a way-the separation between each battery and the total quality.
Reading more in 45 seconds today the list of goods released by Malaysians last week did not help us understand the situation more clearly.
In fact, it\'s far away.
Initially, Malaysians said the batteries weighed 440 pounds.
However, the list shows that, in addition to the warning that \"there is a flammable hazard\", a total of 5,400 pounds kilograms of goods is much larger.
\"It now seems that these batteries are only part of a comprehensive package including radio accessories and Chargers.
Malaysia Airlines still insist on lithium
The ion battery in this package weighs only 440 pounds.
Even if half of the weight of 5,400 pounds is made up of packaging, this shipment concentrates more battery energy
So the potential firepower
Than in the power supply group of 787.
The list of goods released last week said that the packaging of batteries \"complies\" with international regulations for shipment of hazardous materials. That may be so.
But in the case of flight MH370, what investigators need to know is what happens when such huge and fragile goods are loaded-how good is this oversight, how safe is it to place in other goods during loading?
Due to the tendency of Heat runaway to spread rapidly, the total mass becomes important.
In the 787 incident in Boston, the reaction spread from one cell to the other until the critical mass of essentially frying the entire cell was reached.
If the same thing happens in a lot of consumer packaging
The size of the battery, with a sharp increase in heat, can quickly replicate the behavior of the 78 7 battery.
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The fate of Flight 370 is related to ion batteries?
The Boeing 777 flew for seven hours and all the basic systems were working.
When the fuel runs out, its life is over.
As a result, the zombie flight scene appeared: all the people on board, the crew and the passengers were incapacitated, but the aircraft was still able to continue flying by the flight management computer.
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Nevertheless, it can be challenged in several ways.
If the battery in the cargo hold is overheated, the chain reaction causes a fire-a fire beyond the control of the 777 fire extinguishing system-this fire will not only produce smoke, but also generate huge heat, seriously damaging the structure of the aircraft, the flight could not continue long.
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At a cruising height of 36,000 feet, battery runaway behavior will not be like the ground in Boston, where there is an endless supply of oxygen to maintain the deployment of the fire smoke oxygen mask on the plane during the cruise, the supply of oxygen on the plane ran out quickly.
A stand-up explanation is that some sort of melting in the battery consignment produces smoke consisting of evaporated electrolyte-at the NTSB hearing, one witness described the smoke that started to be white smoke and then turned gray and finally black-but, once there was a lack of oxygen, the reaction stopped without lowering the body or system by 777.
In other words, the inhabited part of 777 is like a gas chamber in which deadly smoke works and then dissipated, leaving only the machine intact.
Another serious challenge with zombie theory is that the pilot does not have any distress signals.
Even if their oxygen masks are deployed, there is a microphone in the mask that will allow them to send out a distress signal. READ MORE U. S.
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However, it is possible that the pilot did make several distress calls, but none of the other aircraft or ground controllers heard them.
Last week, Malaysia\'s preliminary report showed that the possibility of long-term confusion among air traffic controllers in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia trying to find Flight 370 has become even more serious.
Of course, given the number of missteps recorded in the critical period following the sudden change of 777, it is likely that no one is listening to their help.
The last challenge of zombie theory is the ACARS system, which automatically and regularly transmits data about the 777 condition, stops transmission, and the transponder of the aircraft, continuously reports its own position, turns off-
The meaning of malicious human intervention.
However, both cases can be explained by a relatively limited damage to the circuit.
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Regardless of whether the batteries are related to the fate of Malaysia\'s Flight 777, their records to date indicate that they pose an unacceptable risk to the cargo hold of passenger flights.
Saying that the goods \"comply\" with the packaging regulations is just a piece of a fig leaf.
The cargo list for Flight 370 listed the shipper as a company called NNR Global Logistics, but a Malaysia Airlines spokesman said he could not name the manufacturer.
It is crucial for investigators to be able to track the entire chain: what kind of batteries are being shipped, what their power is, how they are packaged-and, crucially, what is the manufacturer\'s quality control record?
S. Federal Aviation Administration\'s dramatic test is part of a study conducted for ICAO so industry leaders can consider new regulations for lithium transport
Ion batteries of various sizes and forms.
This is both the nature of the ICAO and the nature of the industry (the combination of rigidity and evasion) to hesitate before issuing tough measures, such as a total ban on carrying batteries on passenger flights.
I was told that the option is: a total ban on passenger flights, freight is limited to freightonly carriers;
No air cargo at all.
Or not on it-
Instead, there is a limit on the number and type of batteries allowed in the hold.
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Despite some reports to the contrary, there is no ban on the bulk shipment of lithium-
Ion batteries in cargo for American passenger flights.
It turns out that the regulations covering all shipments of these batteries are made by relatively few-
Known to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, part of the Department of Transport.
Regulations applicable to air transport are implemented by the FAA and are related to packaging and loading standards.
In Mexico, Cathay Pacific has banned passenger flights.
Richard Howell, head of airline safety, told aviation data --
IHC Janes came together to think that the battery presents a \"very real risk, and that risk is growing.
\"In fact, Asian airlines like Cathay Pacific (and Malaysia Airlines) have the main international routes most likely to be used for lithium
Ion battery shipment
Manufacturers in China are sources of many goods, and as an industry source that does not want to be named, he told me, \"No one really knows how China designs and implements their safety regulations.
MH370 carries 440 pounds dangers in the United States. S.
The FAA is more specific about the flights passengers are allowed to take.
Batteries in mobile phones, cameras and laptops are not restricted and even use larger batteries in professional audio
Visual devices are allowed.
However, spare lithium
Ion batteries of various sizes are considered too dangerous for cargo hold and must be carried with you
Put it on your luggage instead of in your checked baggage.
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