Full Scale Fire Tests with Batterie Electric Vehicles in Road Tunnels

In the framework of the BRAFA research project, the effects of e‑vehicle fires on the safety of tunnel users and the tunnel infrastructure are examined, and methods for fighting fires are evaluated. The basis for this are full-scale fire tests carried out at the tunnel research centre Zentrum am Berg in Austria. First results based on the full-scale fire tests of battery packs and complete vehicles, it can be concluded that important parameters such as the heat release rate and the temperatures of such fires are similar to those of conventionally powered vehicles. However, the increased release of harmful gases such as hydrogen fluoride and phosphoric acid are considered critical as well as the fact that attempts to extinguish the fire with ‘typical’ amounts of water do not lead to the desired results. This shows that an effective injection of water into the battery casing has very beneficial effects on preventing/suppressing the thermal propagation of the fire. In the remaining period of the research project, a detailed data analysis as well as an extrapolation of the results to fire incidents in larger electric vehicles (e.g. buses) and the integration of the results into the tunnel risk analysis models are due. © 2020, The Author(s).