Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EVRISK (Electric Vehicles Fire Risk Assessment in Indoor Car Parks)
Période du rapport: 2023-05-01 au 2025-04-30
The sales share of electric vehicles (EV) in Europe rose to 10% in 2020 as compared to 3.2% in 2019. This trend is projected to increase to 19% in 2025 and 35% in 2030. This positive trend comes with the safety risk and hazards associated with EVs. The current immediate need of research must be concentrated for indoor car parks due to its comparatively higher risk than any other open spaces. To date, there is no specific study on EV fire safety in car parks which is concerning given that the number of EV fleets are growing at a rapid pace in Europe. With past incidents of burning EV vehicles related to the charging process as well as with the ongoing battery fire safety issues, there is an urgent need to explore in detail within the topic of EV fire safety in car parks. Recent searches from building codes from Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Austria have concluded that there are no specific fire safety design regulations for EVs in car parks. Responding to this research and policy gap, this inter-disciplinary project aims to develop a state-of-the-art risk assessment model that can be used to quantitatively measure the risk of EV fire in indoor car parks. To achieve the aim, two main objectives have to be fulfilled:
O1 - To establish a qualitative and quantitative fire risk assessment model that can be used to measure risk level of specific car park design.
O2 - To propose prevention and mitigation measures in a selected architectural design of car parks. To accomplish the objectives, activities such engagements, assessments, and simulation work are planned within the 5 work packages proposed in the project. The output from the assessment can be used to develop specific prevention and mitigation measures for specific car park design that can lead to minimization of the impact of EV fire. The model can also be used as a baseline to develop a policy or regulation for authorities having jurisdiction.
O1 - To establish a qualitative and quantitative fire risk assessment model that can be used to measure risk level of specific car park design.
O2 - To propose prevention and mitigation measures in a selected architectural design of car parks. To accomplish the objectives, activities such engagements, assessments, and simulation work are planned within the 5 work packages proposed in the project. The output from the assessment can be used to develop specific prevention and mitigation measures for specific car park design that can lead to minimization of the impact of EV fire. The model can also be used as a baseline to develop a policy or regulation for authorities having jurisdiction.
To conduct a comprehensive literature review related to EV fire in car parks from available resources such as reports of Electric Vehicles (EV) fire investigations, journal papers from indexed-journals, technical papers, and any reliable resources from the public domain.
To engage with many parties including fire safety professors and experts across Europe to gain insights of the issues from the European perspective,
To determine the frequency of incidents and to identify the possible consequences that may happen in an indoor car park should an EV vehicle catch fire.
To establish a quantitative fire risk assessment tool which can be used to identify the impact of having a range of different fire scenarios in car parks. The assessment tool will be able to establish a dimensionless measurement for comparison as a quantitative technique, which is characterised here as the fire risk level.
To assess different types of car parks hazards (new car park structures, existing car park structures for retrofitting purposes, and underground car park structures) to propose mitigation measures.
To engage with many parties including fire safety professors and experts across Europe to gain insights of the issues from the European perspective,
To determine the frequency of incidents and to identify the possible consequences that may happen in an indoor car park should an EV vehicle catch fire.
To establish a quantitative fire risk assessment tool which can be used to identify the impact of having a range of different fire scenarios in car parks. The assessment tool will be able to establish a dimensionless measurement for comparison as a quantitative technique, which is characterised here as the fire risk level.
To assess different types of car parks hazards (new car park structures, existing car park structures for retrofitting purposes, and underground car park structures) to propose mitigation measures.
Lately, there is an increasing trend of research in the field of battery fire safety can be found in the literature. Studies on safety, hazard and risk management of lithium-ion, acid and zinc batteries; and experimental and simulation of thermal runaway of batteries are among the topics published in 2021. However, most of the work is looking at batteries itself, rather than the whole vehicle. To date, there is very little research conducted on understanding the behaviour of EV fire. There are a few studies on accidents of EVs that lead to fire and safety analysis of alternative vehicles fire, but the findings were very limited. Furthermore, there is no specific study on EV fire safety in car parks which is concerning given that the number of EV fleets are growing at a rapid pace in Europe. It was also found that other recent studies were mostly discussing general vehicle fires in car parks. With past incidents of burning EV vehicles related to the charging process as well as with the ongoing battery fire safety issues, there is an urgent need to explore in detail within the topic of EV fire safety in car parks.