HeatGuard: Sensing Risk Before Fire
Providing safety through temperature detection and actionable communication to make every space safe
S.S.J. van den Boogaart (TU Delft - Industrial Design Engineering)
G.J. Pasman – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Industrial Design Engineering)
P.A. Kraaijeveld – Mentor (TU Delft - Industrial Design Engineering)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
Every day, people charge devices in their homes without realising the serious risks involved. Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are generally safe, yet in 2024 alone, 250 to 300 domestic fires in the Netherlands were related to battery incidents. On a regular basis dangerous accidents with e-bike batteries happen in the domestic environment. Public areas are even starting to ban batteries from their facilities and the fire department is increasingly creating awareness campaigns. With the growing use of e-bikes and other rechargeable devices, this number and the urgency is expected to rise even more. Most existing safety systems detect fire or smoke, but at that stage it is often too late to prevent damage.
Before a battery catches fire, there is a phase in which it shows an irregular increase in temperature. Between the onset of this anomaly and full thermal runaway, there is typically a window of around 34 minutes in which intervention is still possible. Current systems do not operate within that window, and limited research has focussed on prevention within the domestic environment through solutions that actively communicate risk to the resident.
This thesis addresses that gap. It proposes a domestic fire prevention system that monitors the temperature behaviour of rechargeable battery devices, interprets whether a pattern represents a developing risk, and communicates actionable information to the resident before that risk becomes irreversible. The new Alprokon platform ‘Every Space Safe’ creates a demand for an innovative design solution in the world of safety. Starting from the broad scope of safety, and moving through the Double Diamond design process, theoretical research, iterative ideation, and user tests, HeatGuard was developed.
HeatGuard is a safety system consisting of two components. The first is a physical sensing patch, applied to the e-bike battery, that senses the temperature rate of change and interprets it against learned and fixed thresholds. The second is a mobile application that translates and communicates the data into actionable information, so the user can respond safely to the developing risk of the e-bike battery.
HeatGuard is demonstrated as plausible and explored with users. Rather than a fully validated product, it establishes a set of design principles for thermal safety in rechargeable battery systems and forms a starting point for further development and testing under real conditions.