COOLIO - Containment of Onboard Lithium-Ion Incidents and Operations

The United States Navy has recognized the importance of developing a shipboard containment system for lithium-ion batteries that can effectively address their potential hazards in combat scenarios. Internal containment requirements are critical in mitigating possible battery thermal runaway fires and explosions, which can cause significant damage to the ship and its crew. The containment system must be designed to separate the adjacent volumes from potential fire and explosive hazards, ensuring that the risk of a cascading battery failure is minimized. This will enable the Navy to deploy and conduct missions with the equipment they need, while reducing the risk to platforms and crew. Paragon has previously developed such an enclosure in a small form factor in a Navy SBIR Phase II award and is currently executing a Phase III program to deliver the product to USSOCOM and USN Expeditionary forces. The technology is a modular, scalable storage solution designed for safe storage, transportation, management, and employment of primary Li-Ion batteries on Navy ships, submarines, and in other special operations. It is lightweight and compact, tolerant of high temperature and has been proven with extensive testing to withstand high levels of released energy resulting from a Li-Ion battery casualty while mitigating cascading failures. The cornerstone of the product is Paragon’s proprietary design of softgoods insulation panels. In the proposed Phase I Paragon will focus on scaling up the existing product to the larger footprint required for shipboard applications. The first steps will include thermal and structural analyses to drive the necessary design adaptations for a larger containment system, testing of a single prototype thermal insulation sidewall panel, and design a full CAD model of the full-scale system. In the Option period, Paragon will build a full-scale prototype (72” height) appropriate for development testing and will conduct structural analysis of the prototype to verify that mechanical performance requirements, at the system level, are met.