Even after the Galaxy Note 7’s explosion saga cooled down, Samsung as a manufacturer was unable to find out the root cause of the problem. Various medias and news outlets were guessing the Note 7 battery as the main culprit behind the explosion, and the recent teardown reveals it to be true.
The recent teardown and inspection by Instrumental — who specializes mostly in engineering tools and services — clearly showed that the poor design of the Galaxy Note 7 should be blamed for the explosion of the phone. Samsung had the extreme situation to minimize the thickness and overall size of the handset while offering more battery life than its predecessor. As claimed, the new Galaxy Note 7 battery is based on jelly-roll model which includes negative and positive layer divided by a thin polymer to allow the flow of energy without touching each other.
However, due to thin and small design, the Note 7 battery, slotted into thin 5.2mm battery pocket was only left with 0.1mm and 0.5mm of space, while the battery size was considerably bigger — notably, 5.2mm in thickness, thus creating fire.
The study proves that Samsung should have at least left 0.5mm space for the battery to expand, which in the case is normal as lithium-ion batteries tend to expand while being charged. Instrumental has clearly blamed Samsung’s engineering team who failed to exercise safety and reasonable design for the Galaxy Note 7. However, the company shouldn’t really dive into the past. We believe Samsung as a whole will overcome the horrendous situation and return with much more formidable and safe Galaxy S8.
Source: Instrumental
