Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance Conducts Fire Test on Personal Mobility Storage Facilities, Confirms Effectiveness of Protective Measures

Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance announced on September 17 that it conducted a real-world fire experiment for personal mobility (PM) storage and charging areas on September 12 at the Disaster Prevention Testing Research Institute in Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province, in collaboration with the Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology, the Korea Fire Protection Association, and others.

This experiment was one of the activities planned by Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance together with participating organizations of the public-private-academic cooperation platform "The LINK (Social Safety Net The LINK)," which was launched in April to address battery fires in PM storage facilities.

In the experiment, Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance installed a storage facility in a pilotis-type structure similar to real conditions and induced thermal runaway in an electric bicycle battery to observe the spread and propagation path of the flames.

The results showed that in storage facilities without protective measures, flames quickly spread along the exterior wall insulation. In contrast, in cases where safety measures such as installing non-combustible storage facilities and maintaining distance from exterior walls were applied, the spread of flames was significantly delayed.

Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance emphasized that as the use of electric scooters and electric bicycles has increased recently, the number of PM storage and charging areas installed on the exterior walls of apartment buildings and commercial properties without safety measures is also rising, making it urgent to establish countermeasures.

Choi Younghwa, head of the Corporate Safety Research Center at Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance, said, "In order to effectively prevent accidents, safety measures that can be implemented on-site must be institutionalized."

Ham Seunghee, professor of Disaster Prevention Engineering at the University of Seoul, stated, "The experiment proved that protective measures in PM storage facilities are effective in preventing the spread of fire damage," and added, "Relevant safety standards and institutional improvements should be implemented as soon as possible."