These incidents aboard PCC’s and PCTC’s are by no means new. The M/V Courage was declared a constructive total loss after a vehicle fire in 2015. The vessel was transiting between Bremerhaven and Southampton and was in the English Channel when a wiring harness/module in a used vessel (was being transported back to the US) caught fire and did a similar amount of damage to the vessel. The crew was a professional lot- buttoned up and dumped the CO2 into the cargo decks; and still managed to get her into port without any human casualties. The damage to the other- new vehicles was expensive- with many of them being “totaled”. One of the casual factors was detection- this was an older vessel with a larger than usual spread between detectors…
There has been at least three other US Flag Car Carriers which have sustained fires in their cargo areas- fortunately the professionalism of the crew prevented injuries to the crew or extensive damage to the vessel.
Water Deluge / Foam type systems? No Thank You for Car Decks on PCC’s. After spending 2012 to 2019 as C/E on one- I can tell you that extra measures are in order, my first professional thought is advanced detection (IR, Heat, Smoke) for the fastest detection as possible. In 2016-2017 IMO started posting bulletins (and started required the addition when Safety Equipment Certs were renewed at Special) requiring special fire fighting extinguishing agents to adequately combat these fires which would involve EV’s with combustible metals contained within.
Unfortunately- deeper inerting or water deluge systems are not the answer when combating a vehicle based combustible metal fire within car carrier decks; the only two accepted methods are Class D agents or massive amounts of water to cool the involved area down sufficiently to stop the “self-fueling and oxygenating” of the fire by the combustible metals…
This is apparently assuming three-quarters of all cars onboard will be written off.
Is there any way any of these cars are going to customers? Mazda scrapped all the cars off the Cougar Ace, and they only got held at an uncomfortable angle for a while…
From what I can recall- the Shippers and Underwriters generally declare ANY new vehicle directly or indirectly involved (even on another deck if there was smoke migration) a total loss… Puzzling but true…
It seems that the hull with engine room and the bridge and crew deckhouse are undamaged and that only the superstructure is fire damaged. No serious structural damages. Thus it would be easy to patch her up again.
My first thought after the Courage fire. Having an extensive ship repair and structural steel background- I explored the possibility of opening one side of the superstructure decks and literally inserting new sections, deck by deck; however this was not economically feasible. Two yards I believe bid on this- but the internal structures were so badly deformed that this wasn’t feasible. The vessel was given a permit to proceed to Bremerhaven, was cleaned up and scrapped.
Interesting to note- that there was a small amount of smoke ingress into the accom spaces- this occurred because when retrofits and new installations were made- the gas tight boundaries in way of penetrations were not maintained… Food for thought. Most if not all of these vessels have class A-60 boundaries around the accom block and also heavily sheathed and insulated- in way of the accom block and the vital escape walkways. A Deck Officer and colleague was her C/M and he told me that even the top car deck was warped and deformed…
That is true, but a lithium-ion vehicle battery fire is not exactly the same thing as a “simple” lithium (or magnesium) fire. The battery in question consists of a bank of cells (about 8000 approximately AA size 18650 in the case of a Tesla) whose stored energy depends on the level of charge. That stored energy is protected by packaging and controlled by electronic circuitry.
Until something bad happens, such as “cooking off” in a fire started elsewhere, material or circuit failure, or physical damage. Then the stored energy is released in the form of a self-sustaining thermal runaway, such as shown here:
This is probably 8 18650 cells going off, a typical package for an e-scooter.
If the runaway is contained somehow and not all the cells are consumed, the responders are faced with a situation that is significantly different that that arising from a solid metal fire or liquid fuel. In a solid metal fire the metal will be cooled below ignition temperature and safe. In a liquid fuel fire the the fuel will be both cooled and most likely diluted by the water used to flood the fire.
But if you have a situation where (say) 6000 of the cells were consumed and 2000 are unconsumed and possibly still charged you are pretty much in the position of an EOD team confronted with a hang fire. The packaging has been damaged and the control circuitry is damaged or destroyed, so you’re looking at a bundle of stored energy in an indeterminate state. Not fun, especially if you and the energy are crammed in the hold of a damaged ship.
The bottom line is that when one is dealing with EV main battery fires (much less several hundred of them in a confined space) it is not enough to say “the fire’s out.” You also have to demonstrate that there is no significant stored energy sitting in the debris.
There’s added fun to be had when the loose arrangement of cathodes and anodes start disassociating fire fighting water into hydrogen and oxygen. This is what caused the explosion in a Norwegian hybrid diesel / battery electric ferry fire, some time after the main event.
Early tests by a number of global battery experts indicates that lithium ion batteries under a lower state of charge (SoC) – usually around 50% – are unlikely to support thermal runaway.
That’s why United European Car Carriers (UECC), a company specializing in rolling cargo, have specified a minimum 20% and maximum 50% state of charge on electric vehicles, while requiring that battery EVs have ‘sufficient battery power to safely operate basic functions of vehicle’, while plug-in hybrid EVs should operate with EV mode disengaged.
Likewise, Wallenius Wilhelmsen requires a maximum SoC of 50%, while also promoting their services as electric vehicle supply chain experts for some of the world’s biggest EV manufacturers, such as MG SAIC.
And, as per the RISE report on Stavanger Airport, even assuming electric vehicles on board the Felicity Ace were limited to 50% battery and ICE vehicle tanks similarly only partially filled with fossil fuels, thousands of modern electric and ICE vehicles packed into enclosed close quarters aboard a floating carpark are unlikely to become anything but a ‘raging inferno’.
When estimating probabilities and effects it is important to distinguish between spontaneous thermal runaways (which usually happen while charging) and induced thermal runaways or “cook offs.”
The picture is from 18 Feb and is misleading. From the article:
MOL Ship Management (Singapore) said the fire on the Felicity Ace is assumed to be still burning. Currently there is no confirmed oil leaking from the ship and its stability remains stable. White smoke from the vessel is still visible, but has reduced comparing to the past few days, the update said.
Captain reported that this foam system was ineffective against the fire. An internet search turns up information wrt fighting EV fires but not much in the context of an enclosed space. How does this system compare to the more common fixed CO2 systems in a EV fire?
It seems that the hull with engine room and the bridge and crew deckhouse are undamaged and that only the superstructure is fire damaged. No serious structural damages. Thus it would be easy to patch her up again.
As a fundraiser to help mariners out worldwide, I think we should start a pool. $5 (or equivalent) for the date you think this guy will actually post a sensible comment. I’ll start with February 30th, 2035.
Standard firefighting protocol in a car hold fire would call for keeping the space buttoned up, sealing up leaks, adding CO2 as needed and so forth until arrival in port.
In some systems sea water can also be used in the car holds via the CO2 system.
That’s in principle at least, in practice of course could be a different matter.
“Thermal Runaway:” rapid release of stored energy → heat + gasses
It’s sort of like the very old joking description by a physics professor of a locomotive boiler explosion in the days of steam “They shovelled BTUs into that sucker all the way across Nebraska and they got them all back in a hundred feet.”
The equivalent in this case would be “They poured watts into those suckers for hours and they got them all back in 30 seconds.”
Here’s a very detailed NSWC Carderock Report done for the Consumer Product Safety Commission on E-scooter batteries, which contains some impressive time/temperature curves.
