News snippets

Tesla said today it has started building the Model S with a titanium underbody shield to prevent battery fires like the two that occurred in the United States last year when Model S drivers struck road debris.

via NHTSA closes Tesla fire inquiry as Model S gets new battery shield.

A Victorian man who became wedged naked in his washing machine during a prank says his freeing by rescue workers with the use of olive oil was “like a birthing”.

via Man who became trapped naked in washing machine says olive oil rescue was ‘like a birth’ – ABC News Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

“… it’s possible that if you have a battery failure and there is a bunch of batteries in close proximity, the failure of one could lead to a failure of adjacent batteries.” Such scenarios, he said, are what fire-protection engineers are looking at now.

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(battery) failures, Long, Kahn, and Mikolajczak wrote, can result in increases of cell temperature and pressure. Subsequently, the cell may undergo venting, vent gasses may ignite, contents may be ejected, and thermal runaway may propagate to adjacent cells.

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“Halon 1301, the fire extinguishing agent in passenger aircraft cargo compartment fire suppression systems, has no observable effect on a metal battery fire.”

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the proliferation of electric vehicles, with charging stations in public areas and in residences, further noting that batteries may be stored at battery-switching locations, thereby posing “high-voltage and fire safety challenges in addition to those associated with Li-ion batteries themselves.”

via Fire Protection Engineers Address Li-ion Safety >> Evaluation Engineering.

Preparing safety standards for devices and systems used by billions of people and the need to merge the activities of two separate IEC TCs that covered, respectively, data processing equipment and office machines, and electronic equipment for household and similar use, led to the creation of IEC TC 108 in 2001.

via IEC e-tech > March 2013 – Safer entertainment and work.

IEC e-tech > March 2013 – Clearing up misconceptions on IEC 62368-1.

“For many years AV and ITE products have been introduced in the market place at an ever quicker pace and technologies used to produce them have been converging. IEC TC (Technical Committee) 108: Safety of electronic equipment within the field of audio/video, information technology and communication technology, which prepares the separate IEC 60065 and IEC 60950-1 series of safety standards for AV and IT equipment, felt necessary to create a “hazard-based” standard, which would cover both. This led to the development of a new International Standard, IEC 62368-1, Audio/video, information and communication technology equipment – Part 1: Safety requirements, published in January 2010. This standard has gained wide acceptance in many markets where national versions have been published.”

“Several national standards around the world have been published based on Edition No. 1 of IEC 62368-1, and it is expected that it will be more widely adopted by other countries and regions when Edition 2 is published later in 2013.”