133: Managing EV Fires at Sea with Elena Funk and Magnus Arvidson

Fire Science Show

Welcome aboard a journey through the challenges of managing electric vehicle fires at sea with Elena Funk of DBI and Magnus Arvidson from RISE. In this podcast episode, we discuss two large projects devoted to understanding how we can mitigate, suppress and manage EV fires - project Elbas at DBI and project Lash Fire at RISE. Even though the aim of those were ferries and ro-ro ships, the findings are very important and relevant for civil infrastructure like car parks or tunnels.
In the episode, we discuss following technologies:
- fire blankets
- punctuating and injection devices
- water curtains
- low pressure water mist
- drenched systems.
As you can see, we cover a large group of technical solutions used to mitigate and suppress fires. In the episode, you will learn about the challenges related to each of them. We also go into general observations done during the test, also related to the growth and reignition of the fires.
If you would like to learn more, you need to go to the project websites:
ELBAS project at DBI
Lashfire project at RISE
If you want to find Elena's webinar, you can do it here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ms-hansen_firesafety-evparkinggarages-webinar-activity-7134936860115525632-mETf
And also, Elena told me after the recording:
One important aspect of fire extinguishment I did not mention on the podcast yesterday is water toxicity after extinguishment.

RISE, Jonna and colleagues have shown that when the water is applied directly on the battery you get increase in release of certain elements (e.g. PFAS).

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.2c08581
I think this is a very important observation, and I need to an entire episode on that.
Cover photo credit: DBI project ELBAS, DBI-ELBAS-FIXFU21008
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Chapitres

1. Electric Vehicle Fires (00:00:00)

2. Fire Ignition and Suppression in Vehicles (00:11:25)

3. Firefighting Techniques for Car Fires (00:20:59)

4. Water Curtains and Mist for Firefighting (00:27:35)

5. Fire Growth and Firefighting in Vehicles (00:34:42)

6. EV Fire Prevention (00:46:48)