Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

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Materials Today: Proceedings

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Analysis of composite pressure vessel and composite overwrapped

pressure vessel by analytical and finite elemental approach
Chethan Kumar G ⇑, Sagar M. Baligidad, A.C. Maharudresh, Nishchay Dayanand
Department of Mechanical Engineering, CMR Institute of Technology, Bengaluru 560037, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Finite element analysis (FEA) was used to investigate the effects of different metal thicknesses on burst
Received 14 August 2021 pressure and deformation of composite over wrapped pressure vessel (COPV) under fluid force. Low car-
Received in revised form 7 September 2021 bon steel and Carbon- epoxy had been selected as the materials for COPV. A constant fiber orientation
Accepted 10 September 2021
angle had been considered. FEA results had been compared and found to be in good agreement with those
Available online xxxx
obtained from analytical equations to validate the final element approach. Analysis had been extended to
pure composite pressure vessels and COPV varying thickness of metal and keeping constant composite
Keywords:
layer thickness to study the overwrapping effect. The metal layer was varied from 1 to 3 mm keeping con-
Pressure vessel
Finite elemental analysis
stant composite layer thickness (3 mm). The COPV exhibited bursting strength greater than that of com-
Composite material posite vessels considered for the analysis. The results showed that COPV with equal metal and composite
Bursting strength layer offered the greatest bursting strength.
Deformation Copyright Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 2nd International Con-
ference on Functional Material, Manufacturing and Performances

1. Introduction
A pressure vessel is a sealed container that bear gases or liquids
at a pressure that is significantly higher pressure than atmosphere.
Pressure vessels are used in a variety of fields. Previously, pressure
vessels were only made of one type of material, but with the
advancement of technology over the last four decades, it is now
possible to make pressure vessels out of multiple materials. There
is different classification of pressure vessel. In many applications
where, high structural efficiency is required, metallic pressure ves-
sels made of various materials such as stainless steel, aluminium,
and titanium alloys are frequently used to hold high pressure gases
and fluids. It is necessary to maintain a thick wall in fully metallic
pressure vessels to achieve high strength and stiffness. This
increases the weight of the pressure vessel, which has implications
in fields where weight is a key criterion, such as aerospace, marine,
deep-sea diving, and automobiles. Traditional metallic pressure
vessels are no longer capable of meeting the demands for high
strength/stiffness to weight ratios.
The composite vessels operate at high-pressure, high-
temperature environment. Composite vessel fabricated by
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: chethankumarg01@gmail.com (G Chethan Kumar).
Filament-winding technique [1] are widely used not only in army
and aerospace applications, but also in civilian applications. The fil-
ament winding process entails winding filament around a mandrel
and then removing it. The pressure vessel’s inner surface had a
thick layer of resin with a smooth surface. Filament winding com-
posite pressure vessels are intended to subject the fibre to high
stress levels in order to improve performance. Despite the fact that
composite vessels are lighter and stronger than conventional mate-
rials, the manufacturing process is more difficult and expensive
than that of metallic pressure vessels.
A composite overwrapped pressure vessel (COPV) shown in
Fig. 1 is a new type of pressure cylinder in which a continuous fibre
composite is wrapped (via the filament winding technique) around
a metal (liner) that acts as a fluid permeability barrier i,e the com-
bination of metallic and composite pressure vessel. Because of
their advantages such as high specific strength, excellent fatigue
resistance, and so on, COPVs are widely used in a variety of appli-
cation sectors such as aerospace, chemical, and aviation. Two types
of failure [2] modes must be considered when designing a pressure
vessel. The failure of a pressure vessel is based on the consideration
of excessive plastic deformation or excessive pressure during its
design (burst pressure). As a result, determining the burst pressure
is critical for the safe operation of a pressure vessel.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2021.09.174
2214-7853/Copyright Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 2nd International Conference on Functional Material, Manufacturing and Performances

Please cite this article as: G Chethan Kumar, S.M. Baligidad, A.C. Maharudresh et al., Analysis of composite pressure vessel and composite overwrapped
pressure vessel by analytical and finite elemental approach, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2021.09.174
G Chethan Kumar, S.M. Baligidad, A.C. Maharudresh et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Table 2
Material parameters of Q235-A.

Property Value
Ultimate Tensile Strength, MPa 2150
Ultimate Compressive Strength, MPa 2150
Yield Tensile Strength, MPa 298
Yield Compressive Strength, MPa 298
Shear Strength, MPa 778
Longitudinal Young’s Modulus, GPa 181
Transverse Young’s Modulus, GPa 10.3
Shear Modulus, GPa 5.17

Table 3
Different types of pressure vessel.

Fig. 1. COPV. Cases Type of vessel Layer thickness, mm

On COPV, a variety of examination are carried out, including a
burst test, stress rupture lifetime and non-destructive testing.
Burst strength of COPV research was undertaken based on the
influence of changes in winding angle, number of layers, and layer
sequence [3], and the outcomes of Finite elemental analysis were
compared to experimental data and were in close agreement. To
forecast the behavior of COPV, Tsai-Wu failure criteria were used,
which take in to account the optimum winding angle, total defor-
mation, stress generation, and failure analysis of composite pres-
sure vessels. [4].
The effect of increasing COPV thickness is limited, whereas the
thickness of the vessel has a significant impact on the vessel’s
strength. Research had been conducted by series of trials for the
burst pressure and how it was varying with respect to the metallic
and composite layer thickness of COPV by finite element and the-
oretical approach. The effect of varying metallic layer thickness
keeping constant thickness of composite layer on burst pressure
of COPV was examined and results were compared with pure com-
posite pressure vessel. Also, the deformation for composite and
COPV cases by varying metallic layer thickness, keeping constant
composite layer thickness was studied. Also comparing the finite
element results with those obtained from a theoretical approach,
the finite element approach used to predict COPV burst pressure
was validated.
2. Materials
2.1. Materials used
Pressure vessel metal liner material is a low carbon steel Q235-
A is used as the material of the liner. The mechanical characteris-
tics of the material that are used for the analysis are given in
Table 1 [5].
Composite shell material: Carbon 700/0164 epoxy composite
with 60% fiber volume fraction is used as a winding material over
the Q235-A metallic liner. The parameters of this material are
given in Table 2 [6].
Different type of pressure vessel opted for the both theoretical
and FEA are shown in Table 3.
1 Composite 06
2 COP V Metal 03, Composite 03
3 COPV Metal 02, Composite 03
4 COPV Metal 01, Composite 03
Dimensions of Cylindrical Shell: Table 4 shows the dimensions
of the cylindrical shell [5]. Ending effect could be eliminated on
burst pressure as the shell was long (since L/D = 3). A minor flaw
was introduced on the cylinder to promote failure admission with-
out influencing the immensity of the burst pressure. A small hole
was created at the center of the cylinder with the diameter is
6 mm.
Selection of optimum winding angle: The burst pressure rises as
the angle of winding rises to 55o, indicating that the laminate is
more resistant to hoop stress than axial stress. For winding angles
greater than 55o, the situation is reversed [7]. Hence, this angle
was considered as optimum angle and was adopted in the analysis.
3. Finite element analysis (FEA)
Assumption made in the FEA were as follows:

In comparison to the vessels other dimension, the wall was
assumed to be very thin.

The geometry and loading of cylindrical vessels were both sym-
metric. As a result, the stresses could be assumed to be indepen-
dent of the cylindrical coordinate system’s angular coordinate.

At all points, the internal pressure, denoted by P, was uniform
and positive.

Supports and cylinder end caps were examples of features that
may affect the symmetry assumptions are ignored.

Each ply thickness of was 0.5 mm.

When the stiffness of the matrix was ignored, all loads were car-
ried by the fibres, and internal pressure applied to the vessel
resulted in a 2:1 hoop to axial stress ratio.
FEA was done by using ANSYS Workbench-17, analysis involves
construction of geometry, defining material property, generation of
mesh, applying load, obtaining solution and presenting the results.
An add-on module called ANSYS Composite PrepPost (ACP) was

Table 1 Table 4
Material parameters of Q235-A. Dimensions of Cylindrical Shell.

Property Value Parameter Value

Yield strength, MPa 339.4 Diameter, mm 600
Ultimate strength, MPa 485 Length, mm 2400
Young’s modulus, MPa 200 Thickness, mm 6
Poisson’s ratio 0.3 Diameter of small hole (dh), mm 6

2
G Chethan Kumar, S.M. Baligidad, A.C. Maharudresh et al.
specifically designed for modelling layered composite structures.
For the purpose of the study, ACP (Pre) was used to analyze COPV.
Steps involved in ACP are Define Composite Fabrics, define com-
posite Laminates, create element set, define the rosette, define
the element orientation, and define the ply sequence and finally
obtaining the solution. ANSYS design modular was used to create
the symmetric surface model. Composite pressure vessels and
COPVs had a surface model created in the design modular of ACP
(pre) modular, with 4-noded quadrilateral shell elements [8] used
to generate the FE model except in the vicinity of the defect, where
3-noded triangular shell elements [8] were used. Fig. 2 describes a
COPV finite element mesh model. For boundary conditions, both
ends of the cylinder were considered as fixed.
4. Theoretical prediction
The researchers proposed a number of equations for theoreti-
cally predicting burst pressure for thin cylindrical shells. Cooper
equation, modified Svensson equation, Barlow’s equation, and
others are examples of these equations. For cylindrical shells, how-
ever, Barlow’s equation had given a good prediction of burst pres-
sure [9] for COPV comprising of both metallic and composite shells.
For metallic cylindrical shell, the burst pressure can be calcu-
lated using Eq. (1) [9].
2ru T
PB ¼ ð1Þ
D
PB ¼ Burst Pressure; MPa
ru ¼ Ultimate stength of material; MPa
T ¼ Pressure v essel thickness; mm
D ¼ Inner diametr of pressure v essel; mm
For COPV comprising of both metallic and composite shells, the
burst pressure can be calculated using equation (2) [5].
PB ¼ ðP B ÞL þ ðP B ÞC ð2Þ
Where, ðPB ÞL ¼ Burst Pressure of metal; MP
ðPB ÞC ¼ Burst Pressure of composite layers; MPa
Fig. 2. Meshed model of COPV.
3
Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx
The Barlow’s equation for burst pressure of layered composite
shell is given by equation (3).


2 rC T
ðP B ÞC ¼ Pn U ð3Þ
i¼1 Di
Where, rCU ¼ Ultimate tensile strenth of the composite; MPa
T ¼ thickness of each layer
th
Di ¼ Inner diameter of i layer
Table 5 gives the numerically predicted burst pressure values
for different types of pressure vessels namely, composite and COPV
by varying the wall thickness.
5. Results and discussions
For various types of pressure vessels, namely composite and
COPV, the pressure vessel deformation recorded by the incremen-
tal internal pressure component using software was composed for
COPV by varying wall thicknesses of metal, keeping constant com-
posite wall thickness.
Case 1: The deformed pressure vessel along with the maximum
value of deformation as obtained from ANSYS is shown in Fig. 3 (a)
for composite pressure vessel. Characteristic plot obtained from
the software is shown in Fig. 3 (b) it reveals that, the deformation
of composite pressure vessel was linear increase in the deforma-
tion with the incremental increase in the pressure. The pressure
corresponding to deviation in the curve was the indication of burst
pressure. At this point, the pressure vessel fails by losing its ability
to resist deformation. In this case from the analysis, the pressure
vessel was failed at an internal pressure of 27.927 MPa and defor-
mation of 12.933 mm. Hence burst pressure for composite pres-
sure vessel having 6 mm thickness was 27.927 MPa.
Case 2: The deformed pressure vessel along with the maximum
value of deformation as obtained from ANSYS is shown in Fig. 4 (a)
for COPV with 3 mm metal and 3 mm composite thickness. Repre-
sentative plot of total deformation and pressure obtained from the
software is shown in Fig. 4 (b) it disclosed that, the deformation of
3 mm metal and 3 mm composite pressure vessel was almost lin-
ear increase in the deformation with the incremental increase in
the pressure. The pressure corresponding to rise in the curve was
the indication of burst pressure. At this point, the pressure vessel
failed by losing its ability to resist deformation. From the analysis
it was clear that the pressure vessel was failed at an internal pres-
sure of 33.818 MPa and the corresponding deformation was
9.9436 mm. Hence burst pressure for 3 mm metal 3 mm composite
pressure vessel was 33.818 MPa.
Case 3: The deformed pressure vessel along with the maximum
value of deformation as found from ANSYS is shown in Fig. 5 (a) for
COPV with 2 mm metal and 3 mm composite thickness. Descrip-
tive plot of total deformation and pressure obtained from the soft-
ware is presented in Fig. 5 (b) it revealed that, the deformation of
2 mm metal and 3 mm composite pressure vessel was linear
increase in the deformation with the increase in the pressure.
The pressure corresponding to rise in the curve was the indication
of burst pressure. At this point, the pressure vessel failed by losing
Table 5
Theoretically predicted burst pressure.
Case Burst Pressure (Theoretical) MPa
1 26.4112
2 32.052
3 29.5032
4 26.9036
G Chethan Kumar, S.M. Baligidad, A.C. Maharudresh et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 3. Deformation (a) and plot of Pressure vs Deformation (b) for composite pressure vessel.

Fig. 4. Deformation (a) and plot of Pressure vs Deformation (b) for 3 mm metal and 3 mm composite pressure vessel.

Fig. 5. Deformation (a) and plot of Pressure vs Deformation (b) for 2 mm metal and 3 mm composite pressure vessel.

its ability to resist deformation. From the analysis the pressure ves-
sel was failed at a pressure of 30.756 MPa and the corresponding
deformation was 10.258 mm. Hence burst pressure for 2 mm liner
and 3 mm composite pressure vessel was 30.756 MPa.
Case 4: The deformed pressure vessel along with the maximum
value of deformation as found from ANSYS is shown in Fig. 6 (a) for
COPV with 1 mm metal and 3 mm composite wall thickness.
Expressive plot of total deformation and pressure obtained from
the software is presented in Fig. 6 (b) it gave that, the deformation
of 1 mm metal and 3 mm composite pressure vessel was linear
increase in the deformation with the incremental increase in the
pressure. The pressure corresponding to slight deviation in the
curve is the indication of burst pressure. At this point, the pressure
vessel failed by losing its ability to resist deformation. In this case
the pressure vessel was failed at an internal pressure of
27.575 MPa and deformation of 14.446 mm. Hence burst pressure

4
G Chethan Kumar, S.M. Baligidad, A.C. Maharudresh et al.
Fig. 6. Deformation (a) and plot of Pressure vs Deformation (b) for 1 mm metal and 3 mm composite pressure vessel.
Table 6
Burst pressure and deformation of Ansys results.
Case Burst Pressure, MPa Deformation, mm
1 27.927 12.993
2 33.818 9.9436
3 30.756 10.258
4 27.575 14.446
Table 7
Correlation between theoretically and numerically predicted burst pressures.
Case Burst Pressure (Theoretical), Burst Pressure (ANSYS),
MPa MPa
1 26.4112 27.927
2 32.052 33.818
3 29.5032 30.756
4 26.9036 27.575
of 1 mm metal and 3 mm composite pressure vessel was
27.575 MPa.
Table 6 gives the values of burst pressure and corresponding
deformation for different types of pressure vessels namely, metal-
lic, composite and COPV by varying the wall thickness. The defor-
mation corresponding to the burst pressure for various types of
pressure vessels considered in the study is shown. It was clear that
the deformation of COPV were significantly higher for lesser metal-
lic wall thickness than composite pressure vessels. This was due to
the ductile nature of metal and also thickness of metal added in
COPV. In COPV, varying thickness of metal and keeping constant
composite thickness had significant effect on the deformation of
pressure vessel corresponding to burst pressure. The deformation
of COPV for case 2 was 9.9436 mm which was 30% lesser than com-
posite pressure vessel. Lesser deformation was the indication of
greater stiffness of COPV which was a measure of better resistance
to deformation.
Table 7 shows the correlation between the theoretically and
numerically predicted values of burst pressure. It could be seen
from the table that the theoretical values were in superior agree-
ment with those obtained from FEA, thus validating the finite ele-
ment approach. The COPV (case 2) exhibited bursting strength
greater than that of composite pressure vessels. The results
showed that COPV with maximum metal and composite thickness
had the highest bursting strength of 32.935 MPa (average value)
which was more than 17% of the bursting strength of composite
pressure vessel for the same overall wall thickness and more than
Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx
12% of the bursting strength of all other COPV with 3 mm constant
composite wall thickness.
6. Conclusion
Finite element and analytical approach were used to analyze
the effect of composite thickness on COPV’s burst pressure. Burst
pressure was predicted for composite pressure vessels to study
the overwrapping effect on burst strength. Following were the
major conclusions from the results of the investigation.
%
The COPV offers greater strength and stiffness when compared
Error to composite and pressure vessels considered in the study.
5.42
COPV with different thicknesses of metal and composite shells
5.22 exhibited significant variation in deformation corresponding
4.07
to burst pressure. This indicates that the thickness of con-
2.43
stituent shells has significant effect on the stiffness of COPV.
However, COPV with equal thicknesses of metal and composite
shells offer highest stiffness.

The numerically predicted results of burst pressure were
observed to be in superior agreement with analytical predic-
tions for all types of pressure vessels considered.

Because of highest specific strength and stiffness of carbon/
epoxy composite, pressure vessels with steel liner overwrapped
with carbon/epoxy composite can be recommended for weight
sensitive applications.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
G. Chethan Kumar: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software,
Supervision, Writing – review & editing. Sagar M. Baligidad: Data
curation, Writing – original draft. A.C. Maharudresh: Visualization,
Investigation. Nishchay Dayanand: Software, Validation.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
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