Lithium-ion batteries in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) experience highly dynamic electrical loads, but thermal warning criteria are rarely interpreted against non-abuse aviation-oriented operating states. This study integrated three independent datasets: 196 DJI Matrice 100 flights, 13,326 validated Sony-Murata VTC6 laboratory missions from 16 cells, and 67 high-temperature-rise abuse experiments from six cell/source families. Real UAV operation showed sustained electrical demand, with a median mission P₉₅ power of 643.1 W; each additional 250 g payload was associated with a 51.1 W increase in P₉₅ power. Among non-abuse missions, 942/13,326 (7.07%) reached at least 60 °C, and median mission maximum temperature increased by 14.28 °C from the first to final within-cell progression decile. However, the conservative maximum non-abuse heating rate at T ≥ 60 °C was 0.451 °C·s⁻¹, below the minimum same-thermocouple value of 0.900 °C·s⁻¹ in the abuse cohort. A literature-based criterion of T ≥ 60 °C and dT/dt ≥ 1 °C·s⁻¹ produced no observed non-abuse activations and activated in 66/67 abuse experiments. Thus, temperature-domain overlap increased across recorded mission progression, whereas empirical thermal-rate separation persisted.

Additional sensor modalities may improve short-horizon lithium-ion battery thermal-runaway (TR) forecasting within familiar experimental domains, but whether that benefit persists in unseen cell/source families is unclear. This study evaluated cross-family transferability using 67 mechanically induced TR experiments from six cell/source families. Past 3-s histories of temperature (T), terminal voltage (V), and penetrator load/force (F) were used to forecast 1, 2, and 5 s temperature increments. At the focal 2 s pre-onset horizon, Extra Trees utilities for T + V, T + F, and T + V + F were 11.2%, 17.5%, and 12.4% under experiment-grouped random validation but −3.5%, −6.3%, and −14.3% under leave-one-family-out validation. Removing absolute V(t) reduced the voltage transfer penalty point estimate from 14.7 to 1.8 percentage points; further relative scaling produced −0.8 percentage points but no consistent incremental benefit. Across six families, joint voltage–force feature discrepancy showed a conditional, small-sample association with transfer penalty under the dynamic maximum target, (Spearman ρ = 1.00, exact p = 0.0028); this association attenuated when the median thermocouple (TC) temperature or first thermocouple channel (TC1) was used. Mechanical sensor transfer estimates likewise changed materially with target construction. Within this mechanically induced TR dataset, these results show that apparent multimodal gains depend on validation design, sensor representation, and target temperature definition. Cross-family claims should therefore be supported by family domain holdout validation and harmonized input and target representations. The focal pre-onset analysis is short-horizon regression conditional on a retrospectively defined window (−10 ≤ τ < −2 s relative to operational TR onset), not an autonomous prospective warning trigger.

Component calorimetry is widely used to assess the thermal stability of lithium-ion battery cathode materials, yet it remains unclear which material-scale descriptors retain consistent relationships with whole-cell self-heating kinetics across independent datasets and test protocols. Here, raw accelerating rate calorimetry (ARC) and thermogravimetric/differential scanning calorimetry (TGA/DSC) data for lithium cobalt oxide (LCO), lithium iron phosphate (LFP), and nickel–cobalt–aluminum oxide (NCA) cells were reanalyzed using a physics-guided event framework. Cathode decomposition onset, event-specific apparent exothermic energy, and associated mass loss were compared with the maximum whole-cell self-heating rate. In the Sandia dataset, cathode onset and event-specific exothermic energy showed large matched-state-of-charge correlations with whole-cell self-heating kinetics (r = −0.983 and 0.980, respectively). In an independently generated dataset, the cathode–electrolyte onset relationship was substantially weaker (r = −0.376), whereas cathode–electrolyte reaction enthalpy retained a large association (r = 0.886). Rank-based sensitivity analysis preserved this contrast, whereas leave-one-chemistry-out stress tests were unstable for all three Sandia linear models, indicating that the strong within-dataset associations did not extrapolate reliably to an unseen chemistry. Because the two heat-release metrics were obtained under different sample configurations and calorimetric protocols, the cross-study comparison is interpreted at the descriptor-class level rather than as direct metric equivalence. Across the two conventional lithium-ion datasets examined, cathode-associated exothermic magnitude showed greater cross-dataset consistency than onset temperature alone. However, neither descriptor supported a universal chemistry-independent scaling law, indicating that component-to-cell relationships remain dependent on experimental protocol, electrode interactions, cell architecture, and battery platform.

To mitigate localized erosion of pantograph–catenary system (PCS) contacts caused by random migration of arcs during contact loss, a periodic transverse magnetic field generated by a rotating permanent magnet was proposed to regulate arc motion. A synchronized high-speed imaging and electrical-signal acquisition platform was established to compare arc dynamics, current-collection characteristics, and carbon-electrode erosion under no field, a static field, and periodic fields of 5, 10, and 30 Hz at 120 V DC and 25 A, while SEM/EDS characterized surface morphology and elemental composition. The static field shortened the arcing duration and continuously stretched the arc column toward one side, but produced directional surface grooves. Under periodic fields, the arc column alternately deflected and contracted. Among rotating-field cases, 10 Hz yielded a normalized RMS current ratio of 72.923% and the lowest current fluctuation coefficient of 13.509%, whereas 30 Hz showed no further improvement in electrical or erosion performance. These results indicate that erosion mitigation is associated with both arcing energy and arc-root attachment-site renewal, and that the half-cycle at 10 Hz provides a favorable balance among arc migration, current-collection stability, and thermal-load dispersion, providing experimental guidance for selecting magnetic-drive parameters for PCS arcs.