Thermal runaway

Thermal runaway refers to a situation where an increase in temperature changes the conditions in a way that causes a further increase in temperature leading to a destructive result.

Chemical engineering

In chemical engineering, thermal runaway is a process by which an exothermic reaction goes out of control, often resulting in an explosion.

Thermal runaway is said to occur when the reaction rate increases due to an increase in temperature, causing a further increase in temperature and hence a further increase in the reaction rate. It is a fruitful source of industrial chemical accidents, most notably the 1984 explosion of a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India that produced methyl isocyanate.

Thermal runaway is most often caused by failure of the cooling system for a reactor vessel, with addition of components in the wrong order also being a common cause.

Many chemical production facilities are designed with high-volume emergency venting to limit the extent of injury and property damage when such accidents occur.

Electronics

Bipolar transistors

Bipolar transistors (notably germanium based bipolar transistors) increase significantly in current gain as they increase in temperature. Depending on the design of the circuit, this increase in current gain can increase the current flowing through the transistor and with it the power dissipation. This causes a further increase in current gain. If multiple bipolar transistors are connected in parallel (which is typical in high current applications) one device will enter thermal runaway first, taking the current which originally was distributed across all the devices. This effect is called current hogging. Eventually one of two things will happen, either the circuit will stabilize or the transistor in thermal runaway will be destroyed by the heat.

Power MOSFETs

Power MOSFETs display increase of the on-resistance with temperature. Power dissipated in this resistance causes more heating of the junction, which further increases the junction temperature, in a positive feedback loop. (However, the increase of on-resistance with temperature helps balance current across multiple MOSFETs connected in parallel and current hogging does not occur). If the transistor produces more heat than the heatsink can dissipate, the thermal runaway happens and destroys the transistor. This problem can be alleviated to a degree by lowering the thermal resistance between the transistor die and the heatsink. See also Thermal Design Point.

• Java applet demo of MOSFET thermal runaway

Microwave heating

Microwaves are used for heating of various materials in cooking and various industrial processes. The rate of heating of the material depends on the energy absorbtion, which depends on the dielectric constant of the material. The dependence of dielectric constant on temperature varies for different materials; some materials display significant increase with increasing temperature. This behavior, when the material gets exposed to microwaves, leads to selective local overheating, as the warmer areas are better able to accept further energy than the colder areas - potentially dangerous especially for thermal insulators, where the heat exchange between the hot spots and the rest of the material is slow. These materials are called thermal runaway materials. This phenomenon occurs in some ceramics.

Batteries

Some rechargeable batteries, when handled improperly, can experience thermal runaway resulting in overheating and in case of sealed cells sometimes even in "unplanned rapid auto-disassembly".

Especially prone to thermal runaway are lithium-ion batteries. Every once in a while a report of an exploding cellphone appears in the newspapers.

Safetycenter.navy.mil: Thermal runaway Thermal runaway of batteries in an airplane