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In response to
"I wonder if the battery compartment was intact ... depending on what was causing the explosions and sparks and stuff, perhaps not. -- nm"
by
Beryllium
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Battery *compartments*. They're basically stacked laptop batteries in modules separated by fireproof and cooling material.
Posted by
TWuG
Jul 4 '14, 14:27
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The batteries that got torn open and exposed to air would burn, but they'd be isolated from the majority of the power pack. The sparks were probably from the power cables that would have been severed.
"When used as a laptop battery, each cells requires a safety mechanisms to prevent fires. But in a large, electronically-controlled, liquid-cooled battery pack like the one used in the Tesla Model S, having certain safety features on each cell would be redundant.
In this case, the company's cell design eliminates the relatively complicated battery cap of the commercial cell, and replaces it with a simple aluminum disk.
Having radically simplified the cells, Tesla then designed simple and inexpensive fireproofing systems into its battery pack. Among many innovations, Tesla appears to have incorporated a form of intumescent goo that it sprays onto the interior of the pack to aid in fireproofing.
When exposed to heat, a chemical reaction occurs in the goo that helps cool the heat source, while simultaneously forming a fireproof barrier to protect the rest of the pack.
In testing by Tesla, this material often cooled cells experiencing a runaway reaction--to the point that many failed to ignite at all--and provided a fireproof barrier surrounding those that ignited."
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