Received: 8 January 2020 Revised: 7 May 2020 Accepted: 21 May 2020

DOI: 10.1002/er.5689

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Study on the failure behavior of the current interrupt

device of lithium-ion battery considering the effect of creep

Fen Lin | Jianlei Li | Xuteng Hu | Minghong Sun

College of Energy and Power Engineering,

Nanjing University of Aeronautics and
Astronautics, Nanjing, China
Correspondence
Fen Lin, College of Energy and Power
Engineering, Nanjing University of
Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing
210016, China.
Email: flin@nuaa.edu.cn
Funding information
Jiangsu TAFEL New Energy Technology
Co., Ltd; Fundamental Research Funds for
the Central Universities of China, Grant/
Award Number: NS2020016
Summary
The working condition of the CID (current interrupt device) has an important
impact on the safety of the prismatic lithium-ion batteries. One of the important
factors that causes the failure of the prismatic power battery is the overturning
of CID due to material creep. The tensile and creep tests of the MFX2 aluminum
alloy which is the material of CID were designed. Based on the experimental
data the isotropic hardening multilinear elastic-plastic constitution and creep
constitution at the battery working temperature were established. The constitu-
tions were also verified by the notch test. The finite element model of the CID
and the cap was established to analyze the effect of creep on the failure behavior
of the CID throughout life. The simulation tests in the constant temperature
and constant load of CID is designed. The simulation results showed that the
constitution characterizes the basic mechanical properties of the CID reason-
ably. During the life of the CID, the creep behavior would go through the fast
stage firstly and then fall into the slow steady-state stage. The creep effect of the
material would cause the CID to overturn in advance, overturning pressure
would be reduced, the life of the power battery would also be reduced.

KEYWORDS
constitution, creep, current interrupt device (CID), failure, prismatic lithium-ion power battery

1 | INTRODUCTION extrusion of peripheral batteries,9 blunt extrusion,10 and

New Energy vehicles are developing rapidly all over the
world. Li-ion power batteries are widely used in electric
vehicles because of their high specific energy density and
long life.1-5 With the progress of technology, the energy
density of power battery has been greatly increased,
which also brings unprecedented challenges to the struc-
tural safety of battery.6,7
The failure of lithium-ion power batteries can be
attributed to two aspects: internal pressure or external
pressure. The source of external pressure is simple rela-
tively. Any force or moment that hits the batteries sud-
denly can be regarded as external pressure. Specific
compression include: sharp objects piercing,8 parallel
so on. The external pressure of the power battery is intui-
tive relatively, the researchers have studied it in depth.
Amiri et al11 proposed a new method of power battery
extrusion test that can be used to analyze the elastic mod-
ulus of internal components in lithium battery, which
cannot be predicted by standard tensile tests. Avdeev and
Gilaki12 proposed the way using high-speed cameras and
computed tomography (CT) to characterize nonlinear
mechanical deformations in lithium batteries. This
method was useful when capturing dangerous stress
points that may exist in batteries. In addition, Xu13 and
others also established an anisotropic model to explain
the mechanical feedback of lithium batteries under bend-
ing and compressive. Vijayaraghavan and Garg14 studied

Int J Energy Res. 2020;44:11185–11198. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/er © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 11185
11186
the fracture mechanics model of lithium-ion batteries
under compression and torsion tests. This model could
evaluate the maximum external load-the battery can
withstand. This load was firstly affected by the displace-
ment of the spherical extrusion head, then by the battery
temperature and strain rate. Sahraei et al15 used the finite
element model to analyze the strain under the flat plate
compression and hemispherical punching indentation.
It was found that the finite element model well agrees
with the experimental results in predicting the load-
displacement curve. Kisters et al16 carried out a dynamic
impact test on power batteries with a hemispherical
punch. The results showed that the battery can only bear
a small load when the speed is high, and the battery
could bear a large load when the speed is low.
Kermani and Sahraei17 found that the failure strain
increased with the strain rate linearly. This trend observed
in prismatic batteries was opposite of soft-pack power
batteries, suggesting that the potential deformation and
destruction mechanisms of the two cell types are different.
Marcicki and Zhu18 used a combination of material
testing and finite element simulation of components to
study the thermal runaway phenomenon of a power bat-
tery during a sudden external short circuit. The finite
element model could predict the distributed thermal
response of the battery in an external short circuit.
The research on external compression of power batte-
ries was a combination of material testing and component-
level finite element simulation. It was only to consider the
mechanical properties of power batteries to build a more
accurate model to solve a specific problem. The tests had
national standards that can be referenced to facilitate the
accuracy of the model. In contrast, the research on the
internal pressure of power batteries is more complicated.
When studying the internal pressure of power batte-
ries, there were many reasons for the compression of
internal components alone. The two mainstream view-
points were the internal gas during long-term use19-24;
the positive and negative electrode coatings expanding as
lithium insertion and deintercalation after the lithium-
ion battery is charged and discharged.25,26
When studying the failure of lithium-ion battery caus-
ing by internal gas: Choi et al27 used a carbon nanotube
(CNT) strain sensor to measure the swelling of lithium-
ion battery directly, the swelling could be accurately
characterized by using the CNT resistance change. Mic-
halak et al28 reported the way of neutron imaging to
observe the gas in a lithium-ion battery directly while it
is being charged and discharged. However, these studies
did not analyze the traces of bubbles inside the battery
after disassembled. Lee and Ko29 found that Gases pro-
duced by reduction and decomposition of the electrolyte
on the negative electrode and side reaction products
LIN ET AL.
attached to the positive electrode caused the battery to
swell by using CT and battery disassembly technology.
When studying the failure of lithium-ion battery
expansion caused by lithium insertion and deintercalation:
Meike and Thomas30 adopted accelerated rate calorimetry
and simultaneous thermal analysis to study the difference
in safety performance between unaged and aged high-
power 18 650 lithium-ion batteries. Although cycling at
high currents did not have a heavy impact on battery
safety, lithium anode plating could cause a significant
increase in heat generation when thermal runaway occur-
ring, bringing higher safety risks.
John and Craig31 studied the effect of the initial wind-
ing force of the positive and negative electrodes on the
stress evolution of the positive and negative electrodes
after lithium was inserted during the cycle. The results
showed that: lower winding force is conducive to the long-
term stability of the charge-discharge level of lithium-ion
batteries. Fu and Xiao32 verified the role of lithium interca-
lation and deintercalation in the expansion of lithium-ion
batteries by establishing electrochemical and thermody-
namic coupling models of lithium-ion batteries.
Separator is used to separate the positive and negative
electrodes. Its states are critical to the safety of the entire
battery. Kalnaus and Wang33 used tensile test and digital
image correlation technique to study the mechanical
behavior of three lithium-ion battery separators. The
results showed that the three batteries have different
forms of failure.
Of course, the above research was only a simple study
of the elastoplastic tensile properties of the separator. As
a product with the life of nearly 10 years, its separator
should be subjected to a creep test to determine its creep
mechanical properties in order to ensure the reliability of
the product over its entire life. Christina and Craig's34
study on separator showed that viscoelastic creep of sepa-
rator reduces the transport efficiency of lithium-ions and
battery capacity. Ryan and George35 also studied the
creep behavior of fuel cell solid electrolyte CsHSO4. Stud-
ies showed that when CsHSO4 was in its super proton
state, the creep rate of this material was very high, up to
0.01 second−1. This also indicated that the creep proper-
ties of component materials should be within the scope
of study.
Whether it is the gradual accumulation of internal
gas or the insertion and deintercalation of lithium-ions, it
will cause the power battery to swell. The expansion
would not only compress the internal positive and nega-
tive windings and the separators, but also the case that
protects the battery. The prismatic lithium-ion battery
will be equipped with a safety vent or a current interrupt
device (CID) in the case for exhausting under pressure or
a short circuit to prevent explosion. Therefore, for the
LIN ET AL. 11187

shell of a prismatic power battery, the key safety vent or
CID need to be studied.
Kim and Lee36 designed a new type of integrated
safety vent for the internal pressure problem of prismatic
power batteries. In the test, the burst pressure of the
safety vent met the design standard of 8.5 ± 0.5 kgf/cm2.
At the same time, it was also mentioned that in order to
prevent the battery from exploding when the internal
pressure is too large, each prismatic battery needs a safety
device, such as CID.
The current research on prismatic lithium-ion power
batteries mostly focused on the thermal response in the
case of mechanical abuse or overcharge.37 Few studies
have been done on the safety structure under the internal
pressure. At present, the research on the deformation of
CID in lithium-ion battery was almost blank.
Therefore, there is an urgent need to study the failure
behavior of CID. At the same time, the function of CID
also determines the importance of this topic to the entire
battery industry. The specific importance is as follows:
(a) The early overturning of the CID will lead to the early
failure of the entire lithium battery, which causes unnec-
essary losses; (b) When the CID has bigger overturning
pressure than normal, the risk of explosion and fire after
thermal runaway will increase. The mechanical proper-
ties of CID are the most important part of the research
on the compression of the prismatic power battery shell.
Therefore, this research is carried out.
This research intended to design the elastoplastic and
creep tests of the CID material at the extreme condition
of 80
C temperature. The elastoplastic and creep consti-
tution of materials was established from the tensile and
creep test data. Then, the finite element analysis method
was used to calculate the displacement of the CID in the
service life under constant pressure. This research would
be valuable for failure analysis of the deformation charac-
teristics of the CID under a specific average pressure. It
also had practical significance to improve the mechanical
safety of electric vehicle power batteries.
between the negative pole and the cap plate. The negative
pole is connected to the negative pole inside the battery
directly, and the cap plate is connected to the positive
pole directly. The CID is welded in the welding hole of
the cap plate, which is equivalent to the positive elec-
trode. If the CID is overturned by internal pressure, the
negative pole is connected to the positive pole, and the
battery is shorted.
The CID of the prismatic power battery studied in this
article is shown in Figure 2.
During the long service life of power batteries, com-
plex electrochemical reactions will cause the internal
pressure to increase gradually.
The gap between the CID and the negative pole is
controlled at 0.8 mm strictly, and the overturning pres-
sure is controlled at 0.65 Mpa. The working state of the
CID before overturning is shown in Figure 3A. The CID
has a tendency to overturn upward. The overturned CID
is shown in Figure 3B. The positive and negative elec-
trodes are connected by the CID, and the entire battery is
short-circuited. At this time, the battery is no longer over-
charged, and of course it can no longer provide power for
the vehicle.
F I G U R E 1 An exploded schematic view of a prismatic battery
cap plate [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

2 | TH E WO RKI N G P RI NC I PL E O F
T H E CI D

At present, the lithium-ion power battery is classified

into three types according to the packaging style: pris-
matic battery, pouch battery and cylindrical battery. The
exploded view of the cap of prismatic power battery is
shown in Figure 1. The aluminum cap plate is punched
with positive and negative electrode grooves and welding
holes for CID and safety vent. The CID, washer, negative F I G U R E 2 physical picture of CID. A, Reverse side of CID. B,
pole, etc. are laminated and packed on the negative Front side of CID. CID, current interrupt device [Colour figure can
groove of the cap plate. The washer is used for insulation be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
11188 LIN ET AL.

F I G U R E 3 Schematic diagram of the working state of CID. A,

Working state before overturning. B, Working state after
overturning

3 | M A T E R I A L ME C H A N I C A L
PERFORMANCE TES T

3.1 | Tensile test

3.1.1 | Design of tensile test

MFX2 aluminum alloy is used in the design and manu-

facture of CID widely. This material has stable properties,
good uniformity, and excellent elongation, and it is easy
to punch into various shapes.
In order to explore the elastoplastic constitution of the
material at 80
C, a tensile test was performed in this study.
Z100 100KN electronic universal material test system
developed by German Zwick company was adopted in
MFX2 aluminum alloy tensile test (Figure 4).
F I G U R E 4 ZwickZ100 electronic universal material test
The smooth specimen was shown in Figure 5A.
system [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
In addition, in order to verify the accuracy of the
elastoplastic constitution, two kinds notch specimens
were also designed, and the notch radii are 5 and 20 mm,
respectively. High-temperature tensile notch specimens
are shown in Figure 5B,C. The smooth specimen has
a width of 12 mm and a gauge length of 45 mm. The
narrowest part of the notch specimen is 6 mm wide
and the gauge length is 45 mm. The loading rate of the
smooth specimen tensile test was 0.675 mm/min, and
the loading rate of the notch specimen tensile test was
0.135 mm/min.
The test design is as follows (Table 1).

3.1.2 | Analysis of tensile test results
Fractured tensile specimen is shown in Figure 6.
After the tensile test was completed, all specimens
were fractured in the gauge section and the fractures are
flush relatively and perpendicular to the direction of the
tensile axis. The fractures were composed of dimples and
tearing ridges of different sizes. The dimples were large
F I G U R E 5 Specimen for tensile test. A, Smooth specimen. B,
R20 notch specimen. C, R5 notch specimen [Colour figure can be
viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
and deep, also have more tearing ridges. The fracture
was a typical ductile fracture. Dimples and more tearing
ridges indicated that the specimens experienced more
deformation before fracture.
LIN ET AL. 11189

T A B L E 1 High-temperature
Test type High temperature tensile
tensile test design
Type of specimens Smooth R5 notch R20 notch
Number of specimens 3 3 5
Tag T-1 to T-3 TR5-1 to TR5-3 TR20-1 to TR20-5

of R5 notch specimens are all smooth, and their values

can be trusted. As the notch radius decreases, the tensile
strength measured by the specimens also increased gradu-
ally. The calculated average tensile strength of various
specimens is listed in Table 2.
It can be known from Table 2 that the tensile
strength increases with the notch radius, which are con-
formed to the law of the tensile test of the notch speci-
men. After obtaining the average tensile strength of the
smooth and the notch specimen, the load applied during
the creep test of the smooth and notch specimen had a
value basis.

F I G U R E 6 Fracture tensile specimen. A, Fractured smooth

specimen. B, Fractured R20 notch specimen. C, Fractured R5 notch 3.2 | Creep test
specimen [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
3.2.1 | Creep test design

In order to study the creep constitution of the material, a

creep test of the material was performed. The electronic
creep test system (Figure 8) was adopted.
The specimen for the creep test is shown in Figure 9A.
In addition, in order to verify the accuracy of the creep
constitution, two notch specimens were also designed.
The notch radii are 5 and 20 mm, respectively. The notch
specimens of the creep test are shown in Figure 9B,C. The
wide of test specimen is 14 mm and the gauge length is
70 mm. The narrowest part of the creep notch specimen
is 6 mm wide and the gauge length is 70 mm.
The test design is as follows (Table 3).
The constant load during creep is based on the aver-
age tensile strength obtained from the tensile test. The
load of the creep test of the smooth specimens is shown
F I G U R E 7 Stress-strain curve of tensile test [Colour figure in Table 4.
can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com] From the results of the creep test of the smooth speci-
mens, it could be found that when the percentage of the
TABLE 2 Average tensile strength of various specimens creep test load to the average tensile strength of the
smooth tensile specimens is 85%, the life of the specimens
Type of is 35.816 hours. It could be determined that the cause of
specimen Smooth R5 notch R20 notch
the fracture in the creep test is not that the load, but that
Average tensile 90.52 94.40 92.63 the material has creeped under the load at this life. Com-
strength/Mpa pared with the creep load with a life of less than 10 hours,
the creep load of 85% had a better effect on the creep con-
The tensile curve is shown in Figure 7. It can be seen stitution. Compared with the creep load with a longer
from the figure that the curves of three sets of smooth life, the creep load of 85% can control the time and cost
specimens, five sets of R20 notch specimens and three sets of the test as well. Therefore, in the creep test of a notch
11190 LIN ET AL.

TABLE 3 High-temperature creep test design

Test type Creep

Type of specimens Smooth R5 notch R20 notch
Number of specimens 5 1 1
Tag C-1 to C-5 CR5-1 CR20-1

TABLE 4 Load applied of the creep test

Tag C-1 C-2 C-3 C-4 C-5

Load/Mpa 85.994 83.28 81.468 76.94 75.132
Percentage of 95% 92% 90% 85% 83%
average tensile
strength

TABLE 5 Load design table for notch specimens of creep test

Test number CR5-1 CR20-1

Load/Mpa 80.238 78.739
Percentage of 85% 85%
average tensile strength

3.2.2 | Analysis of material creep test

F I G U R E 8 Electronic creep test system [Colour figure can be
viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
F I G U R E 9 Specimen for creep test. A, Smooth creep test
piece. B, R20 notched creep test piece. C, R5 notched creep test
piece [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
specimens, the constant creep load is set to 85% of the
average tensile strength.
The creep test load design table for notch specimens
is shown in Table 5.
results
The results of the creep test are shown in Figures 10
and 11.
Five time-creep strain curves of the smooth speci-
mens were shown in Figure 10. It shows that the creep
rate is faster when the load is larger, which according
with the trend that the creep behavior affected by the
stress. All five creep curves have three stages of creep:
decelerating, steady-state, accelerating. The steady-state
stage accounted for the most of the creep curves, and
reached more than 70% in each creep curve. Table 6
shows the life of smooth specimens under different loads.
Figure 12 is the normalized time-creep strain curves.
The horizontal axis of the figure reflects the relative
time of creep, compared to Figure 10, which is more intu-
itive when comparing various curves. Among the nor-
malized time, t is the actual creep time, and tf is the
fractured time.
It can be clearly seen in Figure 12 that the normalized
time-creep strain curve with bigger load (such as C-1)
will enter the third stage of creep earlier. Proportion of
the steady-state creep stage to the entire creep process,
which was difficult to distinguish in Figure 10, can be
identified in this figure clearly. For the creep curve of
MFX2, the accelerating and decelerating creep processes
account for a larger proportion of high-load levels than
the low-load levels, and the steady-state creep process
accounts for a smaller proportion.
LIN ET AL. 11191

F I G U R E 1 0 Creep curve of smooth creep test [Colour figure

F I G U R E 1 2 Normalized time-creep strain curve [Colour
can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

F I G U R E 1 1 Enlarged view of creep curve of smooth

creep test [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com] F I G U R E 1 3 Creep curve of notch specimens [Colour figure
can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

TABLE 6 life of smooth specimens

load accounts for the same percentage of average tensile
Specimen strength, the degree of creep is similar.
number C-1 C-2 C-3 C-4 C-5
Life/h 0.3483 1.36 2.743 35.816 135.928
4 | CONS TRUC TION AND
VER IF IC AT I O N O F M F X2
The life-creep strain curve of the notch specimens is MATERIAL CONSTITUTION
shown in Figure 13. The creep life of these two notch speci-
mens is closed to that of C-4 at 35.816 hours approximately. 4.1 | Construction of MFX2 material
And it can be seen from the figure that the steady-state elastoplastic constitution
creep stages in the two creep curves are almost parallel,
which indicating that they have the similar creep rates In this section, an isotropic hardening multilinear
of the steady-state creep stages. In other words, the creep elastoplastic constitution was used to describe the
loads applied on the notch specimens are different, but the elastoplastic characteristics of MFX2 materials.
11192
After averaging the three stress-strain curves obtained
from the smooth tensile tests, the engineering stress and
engineering strain needed to be corrected38
1. Stress correction
σ T = σ ð1 + εÞ ð1Þ
where σ T is the corrected true stress, σis the engineer-
ing stress, and ε is the engineering strain.
2. Strain correction
εT = lnð1 + εÞ ð2Þ
where εT is the corrected true strain.
An isotropic hardening multilinear elastoplastic con-
stitution of MFX2 aluminum alloy was constructed by
the corrected real stress-strain curve. And it was applied
to the FEM analysis of R20 and R5 notch specimens.
Comparison of the calculated stress-strain curves with
the test stress-strain curves was used to verify the consti-
tution model. Considering that the material of CID would
not work in the stress reduction stage, the simulation
curve and test curve were compared only before inter-
cepting the highest stress point. Figures 14 and 15 are as
follows.
It can be seen from the above two figures that the
slope of the predicted curve in the elastic stage is slightly
smaller than the test curve, and the tensile strength
reflected in the predicted curve is slightly larger than the
test curve. In general, the prediction curve is similar to
F I G U R E 1 4 Predicted tensile curve and test tensile curve of
R20 notch [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
LIN ET AL.
the test curve. It is concluded that when MFX2's isotropic
hardened multilinear elastoplastic constitutive model
is applied to the tensile simulation of notch parts, the
stress-strain curve fits test curves well.
4.2 | Construction of MFX2 material
creep constitution
Because the creep of the material would not reach the
third stage of creep throughout the life of the CID. The
time-hardening-Norton creep constitution39 which can
accurately describe the first and second stages of creep is
used. When the temperature changing was not consid-
ered, the expression is as follows.
εcr = C1 σ C2 t C3 + 1 =ðC3 + 1Þ + C4 σ C5 t ð3Þ
εcr is creep strain, σ is true stress, t is time; C1, C2, C3, C4,
C5 are material parameters obtained by fitting the true
stress and true strain from the experimental data.
In constant load creep tests with high stress levels,
when the creep is between 5% and 20%, as the creep
strain increasing, the cross-sectional area of the specimen
decreasing gradually and its internal stress increases, as a
result, the creep curve deviates from the creep response
curve gradually under constant stress. In this case, neg-
lecting the effect of the stress change in the constant load
test may cause large errors. According to the transforma-
tion relationship between engineering stress and true
stress, engineering strain and true strain, the creep curve
obtained from the test was modified.40
F I G U R E 1 5 Predicted tensile curve and test tensile curve of
R5 notch [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
LIN ET AL.
T A B L E 7 Parameter of time-
Constitution
hardening-Norton constitution based
on real stress creep curve Time-hardening-Norton
F I G U R E 1 6 Predicted creep curve and experimental creep
curve of R5 [Colour figure can be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
F I G U R E 1 7 Predicted creep curve and experimental creep
curve of R20 [Colour figure can be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
1. Stress correction
σ 0 = σ 0 ð1 + eÞ = σ 0 ð1 + ε0 + εc Þ
σ 0 is the corrected true creep stress, σ 0 is engineering
stress, ε0 is the initial load elastoplastic strain, εc is
creep strain.
11193
C1 C2 C3 C4 C5
2.7139e−11 4.4560 −0.8302 8.3297e−10 1.5931
2. Creep strain correction.
εc 0 = lnð1 + ε0 + εc Þ −lnð1 + ε0 Þ ð5Þ
0
εc is corrected true creep strain.
Five creep curves from C-1 to C-5 were modified by
Equations (4) and (5), they were used as the data basis
for the parameter fitting of the constitution model.
The Levenberg-Marquardt universal global optimiza-
tion method was adopted, and the constitution parameters
were optimized based on the data above. The optimization
results are shown in Table 7:
Based on the isotropic hardening multilinear elastoplastic
constitution, the creep constitution is added for the creep
simulation of the notch specimens. The comparison of the
predicted curves PCR5 and PCR20 with the test curves
CR5-1 and CR20-1 are shown in Figures 16 and 17.
In the figures above, it can be seen that, the steady-state
creep rates of the predicted curves is slightly bigger
than that obtained from the tests. The first stage of creep fit
the test data well. In a word, the prediction curve is similar
to the test curve generally. It can be concluded that when
the time-hardening-Norton creep constitution is applied to
the creep simulation of a notch parts, the predicted creep
curves fit the test curves well. The creep constitutions can
describe the creep properties of materials reliably.
5 | FINITE ELEMENT
SIMULATION AND A NALYSIS
The finite element model of the CID established from the
real object was simplified and used for finite element
analysis. A fixed constraint was applied around the cap,
and a pressure load was applied to the inner surface of
the cap. The pressure is shown in Table 8. The finite ele-
ment model is shown in Figure 18.
Before 1 × 10−8 s, the pressure was applied completely.
During this stage, the effect of creep on displacement will
not be considered. This simulation could get the time-
displacement curve of the CID in the elastoplastic stage
ð4Þ and the maximum elastoplastic displacement which are
shown in Figure 19 and 20.
It can be seen from Figure 19 and 20 that the time-
displacement curve is almost a straight line when the
pressure less than 0.4 MPa. This shows that the
11194
TABLE 8 Pressure
Test number E-1 E-2 E-3 E-4 E-5 E-6
Pressure load/Mpa 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.65
F I G U R E 1 8 Finite element model [Colour figure can be
viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
F I G U R E 1 9 Time-displacement curves of the elastoplastic
stage [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
deformation of the CID under 0.4 MPa is in the elastic
stage of the material, and its shape can be restored if the
pressure is removed. When the pressure is more than
0.4 Mpa, the plastic deformation becomes obvious gradu-
ally with the increase of the pressure, and the proportion
of plastic displacement to total displacement increases
gradually. When the pressure is 0.65 Mpa, the total dis-
placement reaches 0.8 mm, the slope of the curve is close
to infinity at the end of its plastic deformation, and it is
almost parallel to the x-axis. This means that the dis-
placement will change significant when the pressure fluc-
tuation. The CID is unstable in this state, and will be
overturned soon. This is consistent with the engineering
practice that the overturning pressure of CID is 0.65 Mpa
and the overturning displacement is 0.8 mm.
LIN ET AL.
F I G U R E 2 0 Histogram of pressure-elastoplastic displacement
[Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
The normal maximum displacement of CID under
various constant pressure during the battery life of
88 000 hour is shown in Figure 21.
It is known from Figure 21 that when the pressure on
the CID is larger, the displacement before the steady-state
creep is larger. The displacement before steady-state
creep is not exactly equal to the elastoplastic displace-
ment, and it is bigger than the elastoplastic displacement
generally. Because it includes both the elastoplastic dis-
placement and the creep displacement of the CID in the
first stage of creep. The Table 9 below for comparison.
Table 9 also shows some issues about deformation of
the CID under high temperature. At a pressure of 0.2 Mpa
and below, the creep rate of the CID is almost constant
throughout the life, and it can be considered that it has
entered the steady-state creep stage. But when the pressure
is bigger than 0.3 Mpa, the situation completely changed.
There will be a significant change in the steady-state creep
rate, the specific performance is that the creep rate of each
curve drops to a low level and maintains after passing an
inflection point. The creep rate before the inflection point
is pressure-dependent. The bigger the pressure on the CID,
the bigger the creep rate before the inflection point.
Connecting the inflection points in each curve above
0.3 Mpa we can get the inflection point line AB. The line of
inflection point AB is a straight line approximately, and
the inflection points also tend to decrease as the pressure
decreases. It is reasonable to believe that the appearance of
the inflection point in the time-displacement curve is
related to the shape characteristics of the CID which is eas-
ily deformed. There is still room for deformation before
inflection point, in this state, the CID is also easy to
deform, so its creep rate is high. The entire time-
LIN ET AL. 11195

displacement curves show a high creep rate and remain To compare the creep rate during the fast steady-state
unchanged basically at this stage. So, it is called the fast creep stage, Table 10 is as follows.
steady-state creep stage. After the inflection point, the dis- With the increase of the pressure, the creep rate of
placement curve of the CID becomes smooth, and the each curve increased significantly, which was consistent
creep rate is greatly reduced, which is called the slow with the engineering practice.
steady-state creep stage. In Figure 21, the fast steady-state To compare the creep rate during the slow steady-
creep stage is not obvious at 0.5 Mpa. In fact, the creep rate state creep phase, Table 11 is as follows.
of the fast steady-state creep stage at 0.5 Mpa is too high. The difference between the slow steady-state creep
The elastoplastic deformation stage and the fast steady- rates of the curves is very small, in fact, the average ten-
state creep stage are connected to form a straight line sile strength of the MFX2 at the temperature of 80
C is
which closed to y-axis. When the pressure is 0.1 and 90.519 Mpa. Compared with this, the difference between
0.2 Mpa, the curves do not show an inflection point in the the 0.3 and 0.5 Mpa is very small.
steady-state creep stage, because it is still in the fast steady- Slow steady-state creep rate of E-3 is slightly higher
state creep stage and has not reached the inflection point. than that of E-4 and E-5. Slow steady-state creep of E-3 is
affected by fast steady-state creep. Because the process
from the fast steady-state creep stage to the slow steady-
state creep stage is long, and this process becomes longer
with the load decreases. In Figure 21, the slow steady-
state creep phase of E-3 is nearer by the inflection point
compared with E-1 and E-2, so it is still affected by the
fast steady-state creep and the creep rate is slightly big-
ger. Increasing with time, the slow steady-state creep rate
of E-3 will maintain with the same value of E-4 and E-5.
And this slow steady-state creep rate is not sensitive to
the change of the load with 0.3 to 0.5Mpa.
The gap between the CID and the pole is 0.8 mm.
Therefore, when the displacement of the CID reaches
0.8 mm, it means that the battery is short-circuited.
It cannot be clearly seen when the displacement of
the CID reaches 0.8 mm in the Figure 21. So Table 12
and histogram Figure 22 is shown.
The internal pressure of the prismatic power battery
FIGURE 21 Time-displacement curve over the entire life increases gradually according to a certain rule. The rate
[Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com] of increase varies with the state of use, and the increasing
curve of each batteries are different obviously. So the
time-weighted average pressure is more universal in the
T A B L E 9 Comparison between elastoplastic displacement and research of the internal pressure of the prismatic power
displacement before steady-state creep battery. The load level applied to the CID can be under-
stood as the time-weighted average pressure.
Test number E-1 E-2 E-3 E-4 E-5
As shown in Table 12 and Figure 22, during the entire
Load pressure/Mpa 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
life when the time-weighted average pressure in the cell is
Elastoplastic 0.040 0.082 0.134 0.206 0.310 0.1 Mpa, the CID would not fail. When the pressure in
displacement/mm
the cell was 0.2 Mpa, the CID would contact the pole with
Displacement before 0.042 0.115 0.234 0.512 1.12 53 680 hours, which causing the cell to fail in advance.
steady-state This meant that the cell would be short-circuited and
creep/mm
scrapped directly after 6 years of use. The entire life was

TABLE 10 Fast steady-state creep rate

Test number E-1 E-2 E-3 E-4 E-5

Pressure/Mpa 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
The rate of the fast steady-state/mm/h 3.889E−6 1.169E−5 2.910E−5 7.667E−5 0.00312
11196 LIN ET AL.

TABLE 11 Slow steady-state creep rate 6 | CONCLUSION

Test number E-3 E-4 E-5
In this article, the effects of creep on the failure behavior
Pressure/Mpa 0.3 0.4 0.5
of CID were studied based on the constitution model of
The rate of the slow 9.636E−6 8.797E−6 8.912E−6 MFX and finite element simulation analysis. The over-
steady-state/mm/h
turning pressure 0.65 Mpa and displacement 0.8 mm cal-
culated by the simulation were consistent with its original
design. The accuracy of the elastoplastic constitution and
TABLE 12 life for CID the finite element model of the CID were verified. The
main research results of this article were summarized as
Test number E-1 E-2 E-3 E-4 E-5
follows:
Pressure/Mpa 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
Time for - 53 680 18 780 3250 12 1. According to the comparison between the creep test of
overturning/h the notch specimens and the simulations, it could be
known that the time-hardening-Norton model can
characterize the creep constitutive properties of MFX2
aluminum alloy well. After verification of the creep
test of the notch specimens, the performance in both
the deceleration creep stage and the steady-state creep
stage of the material was quite excellent.
2. Simulation showed that the steady-state creep stage of
CID was divided into two processes: the fast steady-state
creep stage and the slow steady-state creep stage. The
creep rate in the fast steady-state creep stage increased
with the pressure significantly. The creep rate in the
slow steady-state creep stage did not change with pres-
sure significantly. When the pressure was between 0.3
and 0.5 Mpa, the slow steady-state creep rate would be
maintained at about 9 × 10−6 mm/h for a long time.
The dividing point of the two processes, the inflection
point, became obvious when the pressure increased,
and it also appeared at an earlier time and with bigger
F I G U R E 2 2 Histogram of pressure-effective life of battery displacement when the pressure increased.
[Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com] 3. A simulation for the CID also showed that creep
did caused the CID to contact the negative pole in
reduced by 40%. When the pressure level was 0.3 Mpa, advance and caused the failure of the cell in advance.
the service life of the cell was reduced by 78.7% because of The overturning pressure of CID was 0.65 Mpa origi-
the CID will overturn in advance. When the pressure level nally. Considering the effects of creep, the same CID
was 0.4 Mpa, the service life of the cell was reduced by could overturn under the pressure of 0.5 Mpa in
96.3%, and the effective life of the cell originally planned 12 hours. The effective life of the cell was reduced to
to be used for 10 years would be less than 136 days. less than 0.014%. When the pressure was 0.4 Mpa,
When the pressure was 0.5 Mpa, the CID would con- because of the CID would overturn in advance, the
tact the pole and caused the battery to fail for only battery would also be scrapped after 3250 hours, and
12 hours. The internal pressure was not required to reach the life was reduced to 3.69%. Under the pressure of
the Industrial setting of 0.65 Mpa at all. It could be seen 0.3 Mpa, the CID will overturn at 18 780 hours; under
that, at a temperature of 80
C, the creep would cause the the pressure of 0.2 Mpa, the CID will overturn at
CID to overturn in advance. And the overturning time of 53 680 hours, and the life was reduced to only 61%.
the CID will be shortened dramatically with the time- That is, the creep could reduce the overturning pres-
weighted average pressure increasing. The effects of creep sure of the CID significantly, at the same time, the
will also be increased with the pressure gradually at this effective life of the CID is shortened significantly too.
temperature, creep was no longer a negligible factor. In For this CID only when the time-weighted average
the future, when designing the CID, the overturning in pressure is below 0.1 Mpa when considering the creep
advance caused by creep should also be considered. effect, can work normally in the whole life cycle.
LIN ET AL.
A C K N O WL E D G E M E N T
The research was supported by the Fundamental
Research Funds for the Central Universities of China
(NS2020016) and Jiangsu TAFEL New Energy Technol-
ogy Co., Ltd.
ORCID
Fen Lin https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6598-3664
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How to cite this article: Lin F, Li J, Hu X,
Sun M. Study on the failure behavior of the current
interrupt device of lithium-ion battery considering
the effect of creep. Int J Energy Res. 2020;44:
11185–11198. https://doi.org/10.1002/er.5689