Numerical Analysis of Multi-Dimensional Coupling Characteristics and Critical Triggering Mechanism of Thermal Runaway in Lithium-Ion Batteries

Yong-Qing Wang, Yan-Zuo Chang, Qi-Hong Tang, Jie-Zhen Yang, Guan-Hong Xie, Hong-Rui Yang, Wen-Min Wen, Zi-Rui He, Kai-Ming Chen, Yu-Xuan Chen, Zheng-Kuan Deng

Lithium-ion battery, Thermal runaway, Numerical analysis, Temperature rate of change, Fault warning.

The thermal safety of lithium-ion batteries is the core bottleneck restricting the development of the new energy industry. To break through the technical barriers of high costs and limited data acquisition of traditional physical destructive experiments, this study constructs a thermodynamic equation and a discretized numerical differential model to deeply analyze the multi-dimensional critical evolution characteristics of cylindrical lithium batteries under overheating induction. The study reveals the nonlinear three-stage law of thermal runaway evolution and accurately locates 800s as the critical trigger point. At this moment, the temperature rate of change (dT/dt) shows a pulse-like surge, exhibiting sub-second high synchronization with the cliff-like drop of terminal voltage. Verification shows that this multi-dimensional feature coupling identification strategy comprehensively surpasses the traditional single temperature threshold method in response speed and anti-interference accuracy, establishing a new theoretical paradigm for the design of highly agile early fault warning algorithms for next-generation Battery Management Systems (BMS).

Received: 19 Feb 2026, Received in revised form: 20 Mar 2026, Accepted: 25 Mar 2026, Available online: 29 Mar 2026

10.22161/ijaers.133.4