Benchmarking Between COMSOL and GPYRO in Predicting Self-Heating Ignition of Lithium-Ion Batteries

Abstract

Recent studies have shown that self-heating ignition is a possible cause of fires when Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are stacked in large numbers, for example, during storage. The understanding of this ignition type is limited, and most current studies are based on numerical modelling. The different modelling tools found in the literature differ in their assumptions, capabilities, and resources needed, and may provide significantly different predictions. This study presents a benchmarking between COMSOL Multiphysics, which is one of the most prevailing tools used in modelling thermal-electrochemical behaviour of LIBs, and Gpyro, which is widely used in modelling ignition of solid fuels. Four case studies are designed with increasing levels of complexity: (1) just chemical kinetics at the microscale, (2) just heat transfer at the mesoscale, (3) self-heating behaviour at the mesoscale for coupled chemical reactions and heat transfer of a single cell, and (4) four-cell ensemble for multiphysics at a larger scale. The results of scenarios #3 and #4 are also compared to experiments. The results show that although COMSOL and Gpyro have significant differences in their assumptions and resources needed, both tools can accurately predict the critical conditions for ignition for self-heating, which validates their use to study the safety of LIBs.