Americase International Symposium: Live Battery Failure Testing With Expert Sessions on Transport, Storage & Recycling

Safely Charging Ahead™ 2026, Oct. 22–23 near Dallas, brings together experts as global lithium-ion battery deployment grows sixfold in five years.

WAXAHACHIE, TX, UNITED STATES, September 29, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Americase International, a dangerous goods packaging, testing and compliance company, will pair expert keynotes and panels on battery regulation, transportation, storage, emergency response and recycling with nearly three hours of live battery failure testing at Safely Charging Ahead™ 2026: Battery Safety, Innovation, & Regulations Symposium™, a two-day program Oct. 22–23 at the Waxahachie Civic Center in Waxahachie, Texas, about 30 miles south of Dallas.

At a Glance

When: Oct. 22–23, 2026
Where: Waxahachie Civic Center, Waxahachie, Texas (about 30 miles south of Dallas)
Live demonstrations: Oct. 22, 1:30–4:15 p.m., Americase test facility (transportation provided)
Cost: $575 per person
Register: https://www.americaseinternational.com/safely-charging-ahead/ (seating is limited; registration closes Oct. 19)

Built around the five stages of The Battery Safety Lifecycle™, the program is designed for intermediate-to-expert battery safety, dangerous goods, compliance, operations, engineering, insurance and emergency response professionals. Speakers include Duane Pfund, former chairman of the UN Sub-Committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods, and Ryan Paquet, former director of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) Approvals and Permits Division, both of HazMat Safety Consulting (HSC), alongside Americase International executives, Tim Harris of General Motors, Hernan Sanchez, Ph.D., of Exponent and experts from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s PHMSA, Pasha Hawaii, the National Waste & Recycling Association, the Energy Security Agency, Energy Safety Response Group and The Battery Network.

Investment in batteries for data centers, grid storage and mobility is moving faster than the codes that govern them, and the risk now extends across every mode of transport, storage and end of life. Global lithium-ion battery deployment in 2025 was six times as high as in 2020, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). In the air, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) data show 97 verified lithium battery-related events involving smoke, fire or extreme heat aboard aircraft in 2025, nearly two a week. At end of life, waste and recycling facilities in the U.S. and Canada had a record 448 publicly reported fires in 2025, with lithium-ion batteries the leading cause, according to fire-detection company Fire Rover.

Regulations are also in flux. The UN Sub-Committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods could adopt a hazard-based classification system for lithium and sodium batteries at its Nov. 23–Dec. 1, 2026, session. In the U.S., an early-stage PHMSA rulemaking, HM-224, would update requirements for transporting damaged, defective or recalled (DDR) lithium batteries.

"Money is going into battery deployment faster than the rules can follow it, and the burden of that gap lands on the operator," said Robby Kinsala, Chief Executive Officer of Americase International. "If your compliance program is waiting for the regulation to show up, it's already behind the asset you installed."

Live Demonstrations

On Oct. 22 from 1:30 to 4:15 p.m., attendees will be transported to the Americase test facility for back-to-back battery failure testing. Planned demonstrations include:

- Hazard classification testing: The vent gas test the industry may soon need, run ahead of adoption. See how much gas a cell releases and whether it ignites.
- Single-cell thermal runaway: One cell of each chemistry, one after another: the same event, three very different reactions.
- Cell-to-cell propagation: How failure travels through a pack, and why a smaller cell isn’t automatically a smaller problem.
- Packaging comparison: A data center uninterruptible power supply/backup battery unit (UPS/BBU) at full scale, open air vs. contained. See why the regulations call for robust containment.
- Minimum vs. robust packaging: Footage of the same cells in basic and robust packaging: what minimum packaging holds, and what it doesn’t.
Test evidence display: Drop-, stack- and oven-tested articles and past results, open for hands-on Q&A between live sessions.

Program Highlights

Keynote — Regulation Is Behind the Investment (Oct. 22): Robby Kinsala
Hazard-Based Classification and What It Changes (Oct. 22): Duane Pfund
Keynote — Compliant Versus Contained (Oct. 22): Chris Egloff
Expert Panels — transportation (Oct. 22); emergency response and quarantine (Oct. 23); recalls and recycling (Oct. 23); and emerging battery hazards (Oct. 23)
Closing — The Custody Map™ (Oct. 23): a self-assessment designed to help attendees identify exposures across their own battery operations

"Regulators are supposed to write rules based on what the data shows, and shippers should make their decisions the same way," said Ryan Paquet, president of HazMat Safety Consulting and former director of PHMSA's Approvals and Permits Division. "You don't know how a battery is going to fail until you test it. What attendees see on Oct. 22 is the kind of evidence that should be driving packaging and compliance decisions."

Registration is available at https://www.americaseinternational.com/safely-charging-ahead/. Seating is limited; registration closes Oct. 19. The event page also includes the speaker list and frequently asked questions.

About Americase International

Americase International, based in Waxahachie, Texas, brings together dangerous goods regulatory consulting, testing and validation, engineering, and protective packaging design and manufacturing capabilities. Through HazMat Safety Consulting, Americase and Fulcrum Testing, the company supports organizations managing high-value and dangerous goods across transportation, storage and other stages of the product lifecycle. It serves aerospace, defense, energy, medical, technology and other regulated industries. With more than 200 years of combined regulatory experience and more than 40 years in engineering, testing and manufacturing innovation, Americase International delivers proven, tested solutions. For more information, visit https://www.americaseinternational.com/.

Marina Malamis
Americase
+1 303-917-9888
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