10 kA switch with MOSFET in avalanche for Lithium-ion battery short-circuit tests

CEA is a technological research center dedicated to nuclear and renewable energies. One department is dedicated to Lithium-ion batteries and fuel cells systems for transportation. Safety is one of the major issue for Lithium-ion batteries and this activity uses abuse test platform for research actions. This presentation focusses on the development of a specific high current switch to short-circuit lithium-ion accumulators or modules and to open the circuit after a 0.2 to 1s duration. The ON resistance is sub-milliohm, the energy to dissipate at turn-off is some tens of Joule because of the stray inductance and the high level of current. This realization use hundred MOSFETs in parallel in avalanche mode to dissipate the stray inductance energy. A second part of the paper presents an avalanche test schematic, a low cost handmade high voltage probe and some first results for avalanche safety area for different technologies of MOSFET.