Exploding batteries....

J H Foto

J H Foto

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Has anyone seen the news report telling of the danger of fire on aircraft caused by camera and phone batteries exploding....?
 
Bit 'drama queen' though, "we had to make them explode" ... you could do that with a tin of baked beans! :D
 
For that report, yes, they did deliberately make them explode BUT there are reports of it happening spontaneously. Personally, I would rather there were some restrictions than be however many thousand feet up when one went up in smoke!
 
Age old subject dragged up yet again by television people this time . I remember all about "loose" batteries having to be kept in their usually plastic retainers and kept separate for flights. Nothing about it with those already in camera as they are already isolated.
 
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If it was a serious risk planes would be bursting into flames daily the sheer quantity of batteries that are on any flight these days is scary!
 
Iirc, its only that the lithium batteries can create mega heat should they get shorted. This overheats the Individual cells and cause them to rupture within the battery and cause a thermal runaway - more expensive ones (with thermal protection) have a thermal cutoff in the form of a polymer that breaks the circuit and isolates the cells again once it melts. The cheaper ones don't have the protection OR have a cheaper material that doesn't quite act the same way/quick enough... So the runaway continues until they explode...

Fun!
 
a1ex2001 said:
If it was a serious risk planes would be bursting into flames daily the sheer quantity of batteries that are on any flight these days is scary!
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If it wasn't a serious risk, the Dreamliner wouldn't have been grounded. As I said above, I'm happy to comply with any requests on safety grounds - there's no hard shoulder up there!
 
Nod said:
If it wasn't a serious risk, the Dreamliner wouldn't have been grounded. As I said above, I'm happy to comply with any requests on safety grounds - there's no hard shoulder up there!
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In fairness the dreamliner issue wasn't caused by camera or phone batteries
 
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The problem is caused by DISPOSABLE lithium batteries. They have been known to explode during charging, but fortunately people don't charge batteries in flight...

Non-disposable lithium batteries should be safe. Airline regulations require that they conform to a standard and are electrically isolated from the device that they power, i.e. they are separate in flight.

If the plane ditches in the sea then any lithium battery is a potential hazard - but if that happens to you, an overheated battery will probably be the least of your problems:)

Mainly, these scare stories are just that - newspapers being newspapers and people who have vested interests spreading scare stories.
 
neil_g said:
i thought the problem was with shorting the terminals causing fire? so they just need to be stored correctly.
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Excessive heat, or if the actual lithium comes into contact with water, causes explosion. Shorting the terminals is a possible cause of excessive heat, so isolating the battery from the device avoids the problem in the first place, and it then doesn't matter whether the safety cut out functions properly or not.
 
Lithium is a pretty nasty reactive material what ever it is used for.
 
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