As More Devices Board Planes, Travelers Are Playing With Fire

Megalith

Megalith

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Concerns about battery fires are ramping up as more and more passengers carry lithium-ion batteries onto flights. Experts are weighing in on how big of a problem these incidents can really be and how containing, rather than policing, devices may be the only practical option.

“It’s damned near impossible to propagate a fire on an airplane,” said George J. Ringger, an aeronautical engineer with his own consulting company who specializes in cabin interiors. “Could a passenger get burned? Yes. Would there be smoke that would propagate in the cabin? Do crews have protocols? Yes.” But some other fire and safety experts are not as sanguine. A laptop battery fire could take hours to burn itself out. And the smoke emitted would be abundant and toxic.
 
Megalith said:
A laptop battery fire could take hours to burn itself out
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Load a rubbish. Liithium Ion battery fires usually last a short amount of time. Minutes at best. There is only so much fuel in a battery and when it comes time to let that magical smoke out... it doesnt just leak out like a dripping tap you bafoons! For it to "leak" it generally requires a major fault with opens the flood gates and she's all over in far less time then "hours". ffs
 
But boarding planes with these mini bombs is rational with even a lipo bag?
 
just throw the device in water. Lithium combusts in air, but not in water. People have been flying with lithium batteries for the past 30 years. This is just hyperbole crap.
 
Megalith said:
. A laptop battery fire could take hours to burn itself out.
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Bullshit.

HoffY said:
Load a rubbish. Liithium Ion battery fires usually last a short amount of time. Minutes at best. There is only so much fuel in a battery and when it comes time to let that magical smoke out... it doesnt just leak out like a dripping tap you bafoons! For it to "leak" it generally requires a major fault with opens the flood gates and she's all over in far less time then "hours". ffs
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This. There is no smoldering li-ion failure. It's frikin catastrophic and rapid and isn't lasting hours. A friends kid just spent two weeks in ICU because he didn't understand the risks of the power supply to his vaping device. THat shit didn't take hours.

hardboner said:
so fire extinguishers won't work?
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For lithium metal, you need class D. For lithium ion, a foam or dry chemical ABC should work. pressurized water, or pressurized doped water added to it = bad.

Given your average person is effectively a moron once you leave the realm of who is fighting who on faceboook, what sports team is doing whatever, and celebrity gossip, and has trouble cooking a meal and/or changing a tire these days, li-ion fires are essentially magical death as far as they are concerned. Heck, so are grease fires.
 
raz-0 said:
Bullshit.



This. There is no smoldering li-ion failure. It's frikin catastrophic and rapid and isn't lasting hours. A friends kid just spent two weeks in ICU because he didn't understand the risks of the power supply to his vaping device. THat shit didn't take hours.



For lithium metal, you need class D. For lithium ion, a foam or dry chemical ABC should work. pressurized water, or pressurized doped water added to it = bad.

Given your average person is effectively a moron once you leave the realm of who is fighting who on faceboook, what sports team is doing whatever, and celebrity gossip, and has trouble cooking a meal and/or changing a tire these days, li-ion fires are essentially magical death as far as they are concerned. Heck, so are grease fires.
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Yup.

Also a good one is dry sand. Dirt is bad because it likely contains water.
 
Darunion said:
Yup.

Also a good one is dry sand. Dirt is bad because it likely contains water.
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I'm guessing the fire would be burned out before anyone could find a bucket of sand. The lithium reaction fire is over in seconds, after that it's just regular smouldering plastic.
 
Bandalo said:
I'm guessing the fire would be burned out before anyone could find a bucket of sand. The lithium reaction fire is over in seconds, after that it's just regular smouldering plastic.
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Depends on the cause of the fire. Typically you blow a single cell and then that heat ignites the next and so on. I have seen some RC batteries take a couple minutes to be finished. The cell explodes and then you wait for the next to go off. You really want to stop the reaction and contain it so the heat doesn't start melting/igniting other materials.

But yea after all the cells have blow, all that is left is a polymer fire.
 
Darunion said:
Depends on the cause of the fire. Typically you blow a single cell and then that heat ignites the next and so on. I have seen some RC batteries take a couple minutes to be finished. The cell explodes and then you wait for the next to go off. You really want to stop the reaction and contain it so the heat doesn't start melting/igniting other materials.

But yea after all the cells have blow, all that is left is a polymer fire.
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You're technically correct (the best kind of correct). My comment was more on the problems with finding a bucket of sand on an airplane.
 
Only minutes huh, yeah this is what we want in business class. Won't even leave a mark on the tray table. At 2 minutes in it looks very very safe.
 
Phone batteries a problem, but driving on top of an enormous battery by Tesla is okay to have crash into your car? Okay.
 
greenman said:
Phone batteries a problem, but driving on top of an enormous battery by Tesla is okay to have crash into your car? Okay.
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Quick better tell tesla engineers, because I dont think they thought about that.... And yes, lets single out tesla since they are the only cars on the road with batteries, right?.... At least we can be safe in our regular cars, those never catch fire in a crash, it's those darn electrics....
 
greenman said:
Phone batteries a problem, but driving on top of an enormous battery by Tesla is okay to have crash into your car? Okay.
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I know this is just some random stab to whine about tesla but in most cases laptop and cell batteries are extremely stable. When people go online and buy the cheapest non-official chinese knock off battery replacements or chargers, they cause problems. I have seen several 'uninformed users we will call them' need a new laptop battery and you know those cost about $80-100, then go and find a brand new one on ebay for $20 shipped.

You will see a problem with tesla when people start getting ebay aftermarket batteries.
 
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