IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v388y2025ics0306261925003812.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effect of the number of parallel batteries on thermal runaway evolution in LiFePO4 battery

Author

Listed:
  • Zhou, Zhizuan
  • Li, Maoyu
  • Zhou, Xiaodong
  • Ju, Xiaoyu
  • Yang, Lizhong

Abstract

With the increasing demand for longer drive range, lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are connected in parallel and in series to meet the power requirement of electric vehicles. In contrast to series connection, the presence of parallel connection may exacerbate thermal runaway (TR) issues of LIBs owing to the possible electricity transfer between batteries. However, the complex electricity and heat interactions between parallel-connected LIBs challenge the in-depth understanding of the effects of parallel connection on TR evolution. In this study, detailed effects of the number of parallel-connected batteries on TR evolution mechanisms are investigated by removing the heat conduction between batteries. Differing from the conventional belief that the electricity transfer is interrupted when the electrochemical system inside battery is damaged in the process of TR, it has been observed that the continuous electricity transfer occurs in the batteries connected in parallel with more than two units. Increasing the number of parallel-connected batteries facilitates the occurrence of continuous electricity transfer. The occurrence of TR is significantly advanced and the corresponding onset temperature decreases from more than 200 °C to less than 180 °C when the number of parallel batteries exceeds two, and the transferred electrical energy between batteries is determined as the dominant cause of the advanced TR. Particularly, parallel-connected batteries with more numbers exhibit a higher risk of fire during TR because of the ignition role of transferred electrical energy. This work reveals the detailed effects of the number of parallel batteries on TR evolution and triggering mechanisms, which contributes to sufficient evidence for reliable early warning and safety design of energy systems containing parallel-connected batteries.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhou, Zhizuan & Li, Maoyu & Zhou, Xiaodong & Ju, Xiaoyu & Yang, Lizhong, 2025. "Effect of the number of parallel batteries on thermal runaway evolution in LiFePO4 battery," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 388(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:388:y:2025:i:c:s0306261925003812
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2025.125651
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261925003812
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2025.125651?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Feng, Xuning & Zheng, Siqi & Ren, Dongsheng & He, Xiangming & Wang, Li & Cui, Hao & Liu, Xiang & Jin, Changyong & Zhang, Fangshu & Xu, Chengshan & Hsu, Hungjen & Gao, Shang & Chen, Tianyu & Li, Yalun , 2019. "Investigating the thermal runaway mechanisms of lithium-ion batteries based on thermal analysis database," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 246(C), pages 53-64.
    2. Zhou, Zhizuan & Zhou, Xiaodong & Li, Maoyu & Cao, Bei & Liew, K.M. & Yang, Lizhong, 2022. "Experimentally exploring prevention of thermal runaway propagation of large-format prismatic lithium-ion battery module," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 327(C).
    3. Zhou, Zhizuan & Li, Maoyu & Zhou, Xiaodong & Ju, Xiaoyu & Yang, Lizhong, 2023. "Investigating thermal runaway characteristics and trigger mechanism of the parallel lithium-ion battery," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 349(C).
    4. Huang, Peifeng & Yao, Caixia & Mao, Binbin & Wang, Qingsong & Sun, Jinhua & Bai, Zhonghao, 2020. "The critical characteristics and transition process of lithium-ion battery thermal runaway," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    5. Huang, Zonghou & Zhao, Chunpeng & Li, Huang & Peng, Wen & Zhang, Zheng & Wang, Qingsong, 2020. "Experimental study on thermal runaway and its propagation in the large format lithium ion battery module with two electrical connection modes," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    6. Zhou, Zhizuan & Zhou, Xiaodong & Cao, Bei & Yang, Lizhong & Liew, K.M., 2022. "Investigating the relationship between heating temperature and thermal runaway of prismatic lithium-ion battery with LiFePO4 as cathode," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 256(C).
    7. Huang, Zonghou & Yu, Yin & Duan, Qiangling & Qin, Peng & Sun, Jinhua & Wang, Qingsong, 2022. "Heating position effect on internal thermal runaway propagation in large-format lithium iron phosphate battery," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 325(C).
    8. Said, Ahmed O. & Lee, Christopher & Stoliarov, Stanislav I. & Marshall, André W., 2019. "Comprehensive analysis of dynamics and hazards associated with cascading failure in 18650 lithium ion cell arrays," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 248(C), pages 415-428.
    9. Jin, Changyong & Sun, Yuedong & Wang, Huaibin & Zheng, Yuejiu & Wang, Shuyu & Rui, Xinyu & Xu, Chengshan & Feng, Xuning & Wang, Hewu & Ouyang, Minggao, 2022. "Heating power and heating energy effect on the thermal runaway propagation characteristics of lithium-ion battery module: Experiments and modeling," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 312(C).
    10. Qin, Peng & Jia, Zhuangzhuang & Wu, Jingyun & Jin, Kaiqiang & Duan, Qiangling & Jiang, Lihua & Sun, Jinhua & Ding, Jinghu & Shi, Cheng & Wang, Qingsong, 2022. "The thermal runaway analysis on LiFePO4 electrical energy storage packs with different venting areas and void volumes," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 313(C).
    11. Zhou, Zhizuan & Zhou, Xiaodong & Ju, Xiaoyu & Li, Maoyu & Cao, Bei & Yang, Lizhong, 2023. "Experimental study of thermal runaway propagation along horizontal and vertical directions for LiFePO4 electrical energy storage modules," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 207(C), pages 13-26.
    12. Zhang, Yue & Cheng, Siyuan & Mei, Wenxin & Jiang, Lihua & Jia, Zhuangzhuang & Cheng, Zhixiang & Sun, Jinhua & Wang, Qingsong, 2023. "Understanding of thermal runaway mechanism of LiFePO4 battery in-depth by three-level analysis," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 336(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhou, Zhizuan & Li, Maoyu & Zhou, Xiaodong & Li, Lun & Ju, Xiaoyu & Yang, Lizhong, 2024. "Investigating thermal runaway triggering mechanism of the prismatic lithium iron phosphate battery under thermal abuse," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    2. Liu, Yanhui & Zhang, Lei & Ding, Yifei & Huang, Xianjia & Huang, Xinyan, 2024. "Effect of thermal impact on the onset and propagation of thermal runaway over cylindrical Li-ion batteries," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    3. Zhou, Zhizuan & Li, Maoyu & Zhou, Xiaodong & Ju, Xiaoyu & Yang, Lizhong, 2023. "Investigating thermal runaway characteristics and trigger mechanism of the parallel lithium-ion battery," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 349(C).
    4. Li, Kuijie & Gao, Xinlei & Wang, Shengshi & Peng, Shijian & Zhang, Weixin & Wu, Weixiong & Wang, Huizhi & Liu, Peng & Han, Xuebing & Cao, Yuan-cheng & Wen, Jinyu & Cheng, Shijie & Ouyang, Minggao, 2024. "Comparative analysis of multidimensional signals evolution in prismatic and pouch LiFePO4 batteries under thermal abuse," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 372(C).
    5. Li, Kuijie & Chen, Long & Gao, Xinlei & Lu, Yao & Wang, Depeng & Zhang, Weixin & Wu, Weixiong & Han, Xuebing & Cao, Yuan-cheng & Wen, Jinyu & Cheng, Shijie & Ouyang, Minggao, 2024. "Implementing expansion force-based early warning in LiFePO4 batteries with various states of charge under thermal abuse scenarios," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 362(C).
    6. Zhou, Zhizuan & Zhou, Xiaodong & Ju, Xiaoyu & Li, Maoyu & Cao, Bei & Yang, Lizhong, 2023. "Experimental study of thermal runaway propagation along horizontal and vertical directions for LiFePO4 electrical energy storage modules," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 207(C), pages 13-26.
    7. Zhou, Gang & Yang, Siqi & Liu, Yang & Zhang, Qi & Niu, Chenxi & Zhang, Shengzhu & Lu, Huaheng & Wei, Zhikai & Huang, Qi, 2024. "Research on thermal runaway characteristics and mechanism of NCM811 Lithium-ion batteries under cross-seasonal and wide-temperature condition at −10 °C ∼ 33 °C: A case study in Qingdao, China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 374(C).
    8. Daniels, Rojo Kurian & Kumar, Vikas & Chouhan, Satyendra Singh & Prabhakar, Aneesh, 2024. "Thermal runaway fault prediction in air-cooled lithium-ion battery modules using machine learning through temperature sensors placement optimization," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 355(C).
    9. Wei, Gang & Huang, Ranjun & Zhang, Guangxu & Jiang, Bo & Zhu, Jiangong & Guo, Yangyang & Han, Guangshuai & Wei, Xuezhe & Dai, Haifeng, 2023. "A comprehensive insight into the thermal runaway issues in the view of lithium-ion battery intrinsic safety performance and venting gas explosion hazards," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 349(C).
    10. Chen, Mingyi & Zhu, Minghao & Zhao, Luyao & Chen, Yin, 2024. "Study on thermal runaway propagation inhibition of battery module by flame-retardant phase change material combined with aerogel felt," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 367(C).
    11. Zhou, Zhizuan & Zhou, Xiaodong & Cao, Bei & Yang, Lizhong & Liew, K.M., 2022. "Investigating the relationship between heating temperature and thermal runaway of prismatic lithium-ion battery with LiFePO4 as cathode," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 256(C).
    12. Zhou, Hanwei & Alujjage, Anuththara S. & Terese, Maria & Fear, Conner & Joshi, Tapesh & Rikka, Vallabha Rao & Jeevarajan, Judith A. & Mukherjee, Partha P., 2025. "Effect of fast charging on degradation and safety characteristics of lithium-ion batteries with LiFePO4 cathodes," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 377(PA).
    13. Huang, Zonghou & Liu, Jialong & Zhai, Hongju & Wang, Qingsong, 2021. "Experimental investigation on the characteristics of thermal runaway and its propagation of large-format lithium ion batteries under overcharging and overheating conditions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 233(C).
    14. Zhang, Pengfei & Chen, Haipeng & Yang, Kangbo & Lu, Yiji & Huang, Yuqi, 2024. "Accelerated computational strategies for multi-scale thermal runaway prediction models in Li-ion battery," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 305(C).
    15. Zhou, Zhizuan & Zhou, Xiaodong & Li, Maoyu & Cao, Bei & Liew, K.M. & Yang, Lizhong, 2022. "Experimentally exploring prevention of thermal runaway propagation of large-format prismatic lithium-ion battery module," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 327(C).
    16. Zhang, Yue & Song, Laifeng & Tian, Jiamin & Mei, Wenxin & Jiang, Lihua & Sun, Jinhua & Wang, Qingsong, 2024. "Modeling the propagation of internal thermal runaway in lithium-ion battery," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 362(C).
    17. Tan, Jiawei & Chen, Xingyu & Bu, Yang & Wang, Feng & Wang, Jialing & Huang, Xianan & Hu, Zhenda & Liu, Lin & Lin, Changzhui & Meng, Chao & Lin, Jian & Xie, Shan & Xu, Jinmei & Jing, Rui & Zhao, Yingru, 2024. "Incorporating FFTA based safety assessment of lithium-ion battery energy storage systems in multi-objective optimization for integrated energy systems," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 367(C).
    18. Jin, Chengwei & Xu, Jun & Jia, Zhenyu & Xie, Yanmin & Zhang, Xianggong & Mei, Xuesong, 2024. "Expansion force signal based rapid detection of early thermal runaway for pouch batteries," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 312(C).
    19. Jia, Zhuangzhuang & Huang, Zonghou & Zhai, Hongju & Qin, Pen & Zhang, Yue & Li, Yawen & Wang, Qingsong, 2022. "Experimental investigation on thermal runaway propagation of 18,650 lithium-ion battery modules with two cathode materials at low pressure," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    20. Cheng, Zhixiang & Min, Yuanyuan & Qin, Peng & Zhang, Yue & Li, Junyuan & Mei, Wenxin & Wang, Qingsong, 2025. "A distributed thermal-pressure coupling model of large-format lithium iron phosphate battery thermal runaway," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 378(PB).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:388:y:2025:i:c:s0306261925003812. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.