Methane is one possibility to replace gasoline and diesel in the future. Regrettably, it is necessary to store it at a temperature of 109 K or under pressure. The European Regulation ECE-R110 defines the allowed vessels for compressed natural gas (CNG). All of them are bottles, that cannot be positioned easily and that take a lot of space in comparison with the normal gasoline or diesel vessels. The Institute of Structures and Design decided therefore to develop a new concept of high pressure vessels. The concepts were evaluated with the finite elements method. Linear elastic numerical computations have been performed to evaluate the stresses on the constant section of different vessels. In order to evaluate the different vessel structure, an internal pressure of 45 MPa (450 bar) is used in all the numerical models. This load case (minimum burst load case) is chosen, because it is the first load case that must be fulfilled in the European Regulation No. 110. In order to design light weight vessels, the structures are mainly made of composite materials. Continuous carbon fibre reinforced polymers are used to constitute the reinforcement. The main mass of these vessel sections is composed of short glass fibre reinforced polymers. The results show that the short fibre reinforced main-structure should be reinforced by substructures made of continuous fibre reinforced composites.
Research for the development of a new concept of high pressure vessel for CNG-vehicles
2008
6 Seiten, 4 Bilder, 1 Tabelle, 6 Quellen
Conference paper
Storage medium
English