- Definition
- UN 38.3 is the section of the United Nations Manual of Tests and Criteria that sets out the eight tests a lithium cell or battery must pass before it can be offered for transport, and it applies to every lithium battery shipped, not only to products for sale.
This page defines the term. For what it means in practice, see UN 38.3 in practice: what is tested, and what the shipper must hold.
What it covers
UN 38.3 is a transport requirement. It is not a product safety standard and passing it does not make a product safe to use; it makes a battery legal to move.
The regime consists of eight tests, conventionally numbered T1 to T8 and covering altitude, thermal cycling, vibration, shock, external short circuit, impact and crush, overcharge and forced discharge. A battery must pass all of them.
The two documents
The test report is what the laboratory produces. The test summary is the shorter document, in a standardised format, that the manufacturer must be able to supply to carriers and to downstream customers. They are not interchangeable, and the summary is the one that is usually asked for.