PSA Tapes Emerge as Key Tool for Battery Thermal Runaway Mitigation
Avery Dennison whitepaper details how thin dielectric tapes reduce thermal resistance by 66% compared to coatings.
As the electric vehicle industry pushes for higher battery density and faster charging speeds, the risk of thermal runaway has intensified, driving demand for scalable thermal management solutions. A new whitepaper from Avery Dennison highlights pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) tapes as a critical material for preventing and mitigating these safety hazards in modern battery packs.
What Happened
The whitepaper, authored by Max VanRaaphorst of Avery Dennison, outlines a three-part strategy using PSA tapes to address fundamental thermal management challenges in battery engineering. These challenges include promoting heat flow while ensuring dielectric strength, isolating individual cells during a failure event, and managing vented gases and flames. The document notes that PSA tapes are increasingly chosen for their versatility, light weight, and ease of integration into automated assembly lines, offering a scalable alternative to traditional materials.
Why It Matters
For battery pack engineers, the shift toward PSA tapes addresses a classic materials engineering conflict: balancing high thermal conductivity with electrical insulation. The whitepaper details how the company’s Volt Tough line, which uses a dielectric film carrier, can achieve equivalent or superior breakdown voltage at a thickness of only 85 microns, compared to the 250 microns typically required for thermosetting dielectric powder coatings. Assuming comparable thermal conductivity, this thinner profile results in a 66% reduction in conductive thermal resistance, enabling heat to transfer nearly three times faster from the cell casing to cooling fluids. This capability is essential for suppressing peak cell temperatures during fast-charging cycles and preventing a single cell failure from escalating into a pack-level catastrophe.
The Bottom Line
PSA tapes offer a lightweight, thin, and manufacturable solution for thermal management in high-density EV batteries, significantly improving heat dissipation rates while maintaining necessary electrical isolation.
