Battery knowledge · Testing methods

Internal short-circuit trigger device

A small device built into a cell during assembly that creates an internal short circuit on demand: a thin wax layer keeps two conductors apart until the cell is heated past the wax’s melting point, roughly 40–60 °C. Developed by NREL with NASA, it reproduces latent field shorts more realistically than nail penetration.

Also called
ISC device, NREL/NASA ISC device, implantable short-circuit device

Example

Testing methods: an example situation

Resistance immediately after a current step can differ from a ten-second value because slower polarization contributes.

Read Internal short-circuit trigger device alongside Abuse testing in this context. Deliberately driving cells and packs beyond their limits — overcharge, crush, nail penetration, external short, heating, drop — to see how they fail. Standards define each test and rank the outcome on a hazard scale from no effect to explosion.

Use in Lemonergy

Record specimen, state, instrument, temperature and timing.

This is a reference concept. No executable Lemonergy block has been verified for this term.

References & further reading

Further reading on this topic

These sources provide broader context; they are not presented as citations for every statement in this entry.

  1. Battery Test Manual For Electric Vehicles, Revision 3

    Jon P. Christopherson · Idaho National Laboratory · 2015

    Topic background · Performance characterization, pulse resistance/power, life testing and reference performance tests; historical 2015 edition.