WE HAVE EMERGENCY FIRE PUMP WHICH IS ENGINER DRIVEN. LAST DAY WHEN WE TRY TO STARTED AS SOON AS KICKED BATTERY BLAST. THOSE ARE 24 DUAL .
FIRSTLY IT WAS HAPPENED LAST YEAR . THEN AFTER AS PER THE RECOMMENDATION AND SUGEGSTION BY THE VENDOR WE REPLACED THE OLD BATTERIS WITH NEW SMF BATTERIES. BUT AGAIN IT IS HAPPENED?
CAN ANYONE EXPLAIN THE COMPLETE PHENOMENA FOR THE SAME. BATTERIES ARE OF STARRING DUTY.

THANKS & REGARDS

Maybe this can be of some help
http://www.whscc.nb.ca/docs/HA-Battery_e.pdf

Can you describe exactly what happened? Are you performing any maintenance on the batteries. Things like checking the water or charging?

What type of baterry, is it? Is it lead battery? What is SMF? Any pictures? How many volts?

What do you mean by "blast"?

Is it possible there are combustible gasses such as hydrogen being released from the battery during charging and allowed to collect?

hi to all
these happened again in this week. battery just burst during the start up of engine.
those are lead acid sealed maintenance free( SMF) 12v battery which 2 nos combinely used for 24 v engine start up control.
both battery are covered with metal sheet which having ventilation space so no possibility of hydrogen gas accumulation. also panel is EX CLASS and no possibility for spark out side battery.
we were carried out weekly trial of engine and as soon as start signal initiated from remote area sudden a battery burst and found battery enclosures in pieces.
what shud be the best charging practice for 12 x 2 v batteries. wat can be the minimum and max charging current required for such SMF batteries?

thanking all of you in advance that you are responding this probelm.
thanks & regards

Any pictures taken? We never see this battery blast off so we want to see pictures, if possible.

Have you called the battery manufacturer?

Have you checked to be sure there is not a problem in the starter on the engine or the starter solenoid? A dead short to ground in either component can cause a battery to fail in this manner.

here is the burst battery pic.
how long it is ok to use SMF batteris and what are the advantages over wet batteries concerning safety. Can any one Explain?

mr clav, can you tell me the phenomina how solid grounding or grounding in any part can burst the battery?

thanks & REgards

102.jpg (960 Kb, 42 downloads)

Have you contacted the battery manufacturer yet to discuss the problem?

Was it the same type of battery both times that they exploded?

Has the engine ever started successfully since this problem started occurring?

Do you have an AC charger charging these batteries while idle? Most do. Have you measured the output from the charger for DC volts and AC ripple? Bad rectifiers could cause high AC ripple on the DC output. Make sure its not charging continuously on equalize mode.

What maintenance do you perform on these batteries? The maintainers should wear face shield and from the looks of your picture, blast gear.

Improper wiring and lack of ventilation are other possibilities, which have already been mentioned.

Good luck,
J-

I agree 100% the battery manufacturere is your number 1 best resource and considering this is a potentially dangerous situation, you really should bring them into your problem solving. Another reason the OEM is so important in this case is that there are very large variations of battery designs, even within the lead acid "sealed" category.

A basic problem is that lead acid batteries generally convert electrolyte into gas while charging. When you try to make a lead acid battery sealed or maintenance free, you have to figure out a way to deal with or prevent those gases and a way to maintain electrolyte level. There are a wide variety of approaches. A lot of them are valve regulated which means a relief valve acts to control pressure during normal operation. Others have relief valve which is never supposed to lift. In either case I think those relief valves will be a very important item to inspect. Another thing is that the charging profile is very carefully controlled to limit the production of gases... that is the part that your OEM knows can tell you best.

Wow, it really happened! Pls contact CAT which is shown on the wreckage coz it's very reputable. I also thought about something to dot with the chemical reaction inside the battery but didn't want to speculate though.