Finite element analysis of burst pressure of composite hydrogen storage vessels

Carbon fiber/epoxy composites have been increasingly used to develop the lightweight high pressure hydrogen storage vessel in areas of the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. In this research, a 3D parametric finite element model is proposed to predict the damage evolution and failure strength of the composite hydrogen storage vessels, in which a solution algorithm is proposed to investigate the progressive damage and failure properties of composite structures with increasing internal pressure. The maximum stress, Hoffman, Tsai–Hill and Tsai–Wu failure criteria which are employed respectively to determine the failure properties of composite vessels are incorporated into the numerical method as individual subroutines. The birth-to-death element technique in the finite element analysis is used to describe the mechanical properties of carbon fiber/epoxy composite elements. Parametric studies in terms of the effects of different failure criteria are performed and the calculated failure strengths of composite vessels are also compared with the experimental results.