i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 2 3 7 7 9 e2 3 7 9 4

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Simulation and burst validation of 70 MPa type IV

hydrogen storage vessel with dome reinforcement

Zhengyun Hu a, Minghe Chen a,*, Bo Pan b

a
College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing,
210016, China
b
YAPP Automotive Systems Co., Ltd., R&D Center, Yangzhou, 225009, China

highlights graphical abstract

The fiber stress near the equator of

the dome section directly affects
the burst mode.

The smaller the angle of dome
reinforcement parts, the better the
reinforcing effect.

The dome reinforcement parts can
transfer the maximum stress to
the cylinder section.

The dome reinforcement parts
help to reduce carbon fiber con-
sumption by up to 5.5%.

article info abstract

Article history: The dome reinforcement (DR) technology was studied to reduce the amount of carbon fiber of
Received 18 January 2021 the type IV hydrogen storage vessel in this paper. Firstly, the influence of the angle and
Received in revised form thickness of the dome reinforcement part on the stress distribution of the dome section is
8 April 2021 studied by finite element analysis. Secondly, the weight reduction of carbon fiber composite
Accepted 28 April 2021 layer is studied based on the dome reinforcement model. The strain-based Hashin progressive
Available online 26 May 2021 damage model is used to predict the burst pressure and burst mode with user-defined material
subroutine (UMAT) of ABAQUS. Finally, the dome reinforcement technology is further verified
Keywords: in comparison with non-dome reinforcement by burst tests. The results show that the pro-
Hydrogen storage vessel gressive damage model can effectively represent matrix cracking and fiber fracture, and the
Optimization predicted burst pressure and mode is consistent with the test results. The fiber stress near the
Dome reinforcement (DR) equator of the dome section affects the burst mode, and the smaller the angle of dome rein-
Winding forcement parts, the better the reinforcing effect, and the dome reinforcement technology can
Hashin failure theory help to improve the fiber damage state at the dome, transfer the maximum stress to the cyl-
inder section of the vessel, and ensure the burst mode to be a safe mode. Also, it can help to
reduce the consumption of carbon fiber by up to 5.5% in composite material.
© 2021 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: meemhchen@nuaa.edu.cn (M. Chen).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2021.04.186
0360-3199/© 2021 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
23780 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 2 3 7 7 9 e2 3 7 9 4
Introduction
“Zero emission” and “Carbon neutrality” are the eternal topics
of sustainable development in today's world, which urgently
requires us to develop cleaner and renewable energy. The
utilization of renewable energy has become the environ-
mental policy for many countries. The Paris climate agree-
ment aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero by the
end of this century, and in order to achieve these goals, the
share of renewable energy in the energy mix must be
increased [1]. Hydrogen is considered as the ultimate form of
energy because of its zero-emission characteristics. However,
the preparation, storage and transportation of hydrogen has
always been a problem in the use of hydrogen energy. In terms
of hydrogen storage, up to now, various hydrogen storage
forms have been developed, such as gaseous hydrogen stor-
age, liquid hydrogen storage and solid adsorption hydrogen
storage [2]. High-pressure hydrogen storage is becoming the
mainstream method of hydrogen storage because of its simple
process and convenient [3e6]. Hydrogen storage cylinder is
the core component of gaseous high-pressure hydrogen
storage technology. According to the structure of the cylinder,
it can be divided into four types. Type I cylinder is a metal
cylinder, which is characterized by large weight and low
pressure. Type II is characterized by the addition of hoop
winding outside the metal liner, which reduces the weight
and increases the pressure compared with Type I. Type III is
fully wrapped with carbon fiber around the metal liner to
further strengthen the dome section and reduce weight for
greater pressure bearing. And the difference between type IV
and type III is that a plastic liner is used in the type IV cylinder,
which reduces cost and weight.
There are two important technical points have become the
focus of current research for type IV 70 MPa hydrogen storage
vessel. The first one is safety performance [7,8], in which there
have been a lot of studies, such as hydrogen filling [9], cylinder
collision [10] and fire test [11], etc. However, it's worth noting
that because hydrogen molecules are so small, it is easy to
penetrate into the plastic inner liner of the gas cylinder, and it
is charged and discharged for a long time, and the inner liner
bubbles and fails. Thomas [12] tested the permeability for
hydrogen of HDPE (High-density polyethylene) and PA (Poly-
amide), the results show that hydrogen permeation resistance
of PA is better, therefore, PA is a common raw material for the
liner. Pepin [13,14] et al. studied the experimental phenome-
non of interface separation between plastic inner liner and
composite material layer of type IV gas cylinder. The results
showed that the faster the hydrogen discharge rate was, the
greater the pressure difference between inside and outside
the inner liner was, and the easier the interface separated. The
second focus is on cost reduction. For a 70 MPa hydrogen
storage vessel, it is mainly composed of liner and composite
material layer, and the cost of carbon fiber composite material
accounts for about 70% of the entire cylinder [15]. Therefore,
reducing carbon fiber consumption is an important task in the
design and development of hydrogen storage vessel. Yama-
shita [16] et al. reduced the weight of carbon fiber composite
material by 20% by optimizing the layup angle and adopting
large angle helical winding, and reduced the number of helical
winding layers by 5% by changing the structure of metal boss.
Roh [2] et al. studied the dome reinforcement technology of a
70 MPa hydrogen storage vessel by using the finite element
method and proposed an end-cap reinforcement method,
which would effectively reduce the thickness of helical wound
layer and the weight of composite layer by about 10%. But
there was no corresponding test in the paper. Leh [17] et al.
used GA (genetic algorithm) to study the laying-up sequence
of hydrogen storage vessels and found that the optimal
laying-up design scheme could reduce the weight by 30%
when considering the damage of composite materials. Xu [18]
studied on lightweight design of composite cylinder by using
Mentor Carlo and genetic algorithm, and the results show that
the genetic algorithm has higher efficiency in minimize the
weight of composite hydrogen storage vessel. Liu [19] studied
on the reinforcement technology of gas cylinders by experi-
ments, and according to the results, the DR (dome reinforce-
ment) technology changed the burst mode and improved the
strength of helical wound fibers.
There is an important correlation between the bursting
pressure and the stress near the equator of the dome. In the
traditional fiber winding technology, there are two types of
winding patterns, hoop winding and helical winding. Among
which, the helical winding can be divided into large angle and
small angle winding, it is mentioned in literature [16] that
large angle winding can provide a part of annular strength,
and can also play a role in strengthening the equatorial posi-
tion of the dome. However, under the burst test, the helical
fiber strength is still not fully utilized, and there is still ma-
terial waste.
The purpose of this paper is the lightweight design of gas
cylinder, a local reinforcement method (dome reinforcement,
DR) is proposed in this paper to reduce the consumption of
fiber in the helical direction.
(i) the effect of fiber stress at the equatorial position of the
dome on the burst mode was studied;
(ii) the influence of the thickness and angle of dome rein-
forcement parts on the burst pressure was also studied;
(iii) the effect of dome reinforcement technology on light-
weight was verified by comparing the burst results of
non-reinforced and reinforced parts.
This paper also introduces the modeling and burst pre-
diction simulation methods of type IV hydrogen storage
vessels.
Design theory
The laying-up design of composite gas cylinders has a large
safety margin, each standard defines 2.25 [20,21] as the min-
imum safety factor of gas cylinders for hydrogen storage cyl-
inders at 70 MPa. The larger safety factor is, the heavier the
carbon fiber layers will be. According to the stress
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characteristics of the cylinder, the stress in hoop direction is

twice as much as the axial, in order to maintain this equilib-
rium relationship and combine with the characteristics of
fiber winding, netting theory [22,23] is used to estimate the
thickness of composite layers. However, this theory does not
consider the contribution of resin to the strength of composite
materials, and only calculates the equilibrium conditions
under the burst condition [24]. Chen [25] optimized the netting
theory, the stress balance coefficient was taking into account
the burst intensity of the cylinder, to enhance the dome, and
ensured that the burst mode of the cylinder was under a safe
mode.

Netting theory

pR Fig. 2 e Contribution of winding angle to hoop strength.

Ta ¼ (1)
2sf kcos 2 a


pR 1
Tc ¼ 2  tan2 a
2sf k
Eqs. (1) and (2) are Chen's optimized netting theory for-
mulas, where, R- cylinder radius, a-the average angle of heli-
cal winding, p- burst pressure, sf - fiber strength, k - stress
balance coefficient, Ta - the thickness of helical layers, and Tc -
the thickness of hoop winding. When k ¼ 1 , Eqs. (1) and (2)
become the traditional equilibrium conditional netting the-
ory, when k < 1 , the netting theory takes into account the
whole section of the vessel including the dome section, and
this theory has become popular for the design of filament
winding cylinders, especially in thickness estimation. As
shown in Fig. 1, the strength of the dome determines the burst
mode. When after burst test the dome and cylinder section are
still connected, which can be considered as safe mode;
otherwise, it is considered as unsafe mode.
Dome reinforcement theory
It is necessary to strengthen the dome in order to keep a safe
mode, for winding process, only helical winding can enhance
the strength of the dome section. According to the netting
theory, the smaller the stress balance coefficient k is, the
larger the helical wound thickness will be, and the burst mode
tends to be safe. In the actual design process, the range of k is
determined mainly through the burst mode, so as to increase
the thickness of helical and ensure the safe burst mode.
(2) As the fiber composites are anisotropic materials, the fiber
direction will carry a large load. Therefore, the maximum
loading capacity of composite materials is determined by the
angle between loading and the fiber direction. As shown in
Fig. 2, q means the angle of helical winding, when q > 60 , helical
wound fiber has enhanced contribution rate of hoop strength,
when q < 60 , The circumferential strength is negligible.
However, in order to strengthen the overall strength of the
dome, it is necessary to use small angle helical winding, which
causes waste of fiber and increases the cost. Therefore, the DR
technology of hydrogen storage vessel is studied this paper, by
strengthening the key position of the dome, the amount of
helical wound fiber is reduced and to achieve the purpose of
reducing costs.
Simulation
Finite element model
As shown in Fig. 3, the length of the inner liner is about
855 mm, the diameter is 347 mm, and the height of the dome
section is 95 mm. Among them, the metal boss and the plastic
liner are made of aluminum alloy (6061-T6) and nylon (PA),
respectively. Both of them are connected by a sealing struc-
ture, and the whole liner prevent hydrogen leakage, and acts
as a mandrel to provide support for the composite winding.

Fig. 1 e Burst mode [15].

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Fig. 3 e Finite element model.

The outside of the cylinder is a composite layer, which

made up of carbon fiber and resin, the carbon fiber is soaked in Table 1 e Mechanical properties of aluminum alloy 6061-
liquid epoxy resin and cured at high temperatures to get the T6 and nylon PA6 [29].
strength, the composite layer needs to be designed for Property Value
enhance the structure, and the original lay-up design (marked
6061-T6 Young's modulus (E) 74.12 GPa
as Original) is shown in the table in Fig. 3. The DR parts are
Poisson's ratio (w) 0.28
added at both ends of the cylinder to study the influence on Yield strength (ss ) 280 MPa
burst performance, and the angles and thicknesses are also Ultimate strength (sb ) 368 MPa
shown in the figure. Percentage elongation (d) 12%
There has been a lot of research on composite cylinder PA6 Young's modulus (E) 1.88 GPa
modeling, Lin [26] et al. studied the burst performance of gas Poisson's ratio (w) 0.4
Yield strength (ss ) 47 MPa
cylinders and established a 1/36 3D composite gas cylinder
Ultimate strength (sb ) 55 MPa
model. Son [27] and Han [28] modeled the composite ma-
Density (r) 1.06  103 kg m3
terial using continuous shell elements and established 1/2
and 1/4 models, respectively. Because of the rotating sym-
metric structure of composite cylinder, the axisymmetric Progressive damage model
model in ABAQUS software was selected in this paper.
Consistent with the model used by Hu [29], the contact To predicted the burst performance of different design of DR
property between the plastic liner and the composite layer parts, firstly, it is necessary to accurately model the composite
is defined, the friction coefficient is 0.2, the element types material layer of the cylinder. This paper using the plug-in
are CAX3 and CAX4, and there is no reduction integral. The WCM of the commercial software ABAQUS, the basic model
boundary conditions are consistent with the actual situa-
tion, one end is fixed and the other is free, the number of
elements is about 700,000 and ensure that each composite
layer is divided into 3 elements. Table 2 e Composite properties.
Property Value
Material model
Extensional modulus in 1- direction (E11) 160 GPa
Extensional modulus in 2- direction (E22) 7.42 GPa
Type IV composite cylinders are composed of three materials, Extensional modulus in 3- direction (E33) 7.42 GPa
namely aluminum alloy (6061-T6), nylon (PA6) and carbon Shear Modulus (G12) 3.71 GPa
fiber composite materials, the material model described by Hu Shear Modulus (G23) 4.79 GPa
[29] is used for aluminum alloy and nylon, and the mechanical Shear Modulus (G13) 3.71 GPa
Poisson's ratio (m12) 0.26
properties are shown in Table 1.
Poisson's ratio (m23) 0.47
Anisotropy is one of the most obvious characteristics of
Poisson's ratio (m13) 0.26
fiber composite materials. Nine engineering constants are Longitudinal tensile Strength (Xt) 2800 MPa
needed to describe the anisotropy of a composite material. As Longitudinal compressive Strength (Xc) 1379 MPa
shown in Table 2, the first nine parameters are the composite Transverse Tensile Strength in (Yt) 66.5 MPa
material engineering constants, and the next six parameters Transverse compressive (Yc) 268.5 MPa
represent the strength of the composite material in all Shear Strength in 1e2 (1e3) plane (S12) 58.7 MPa
Shear Strength in 2e3plane (S23) 58.7 MPa
directions.
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of composite material layer is established, which contains the

8      
stacking sequences and the angle of composite material layer > E ¼ 1  dvf E1 ，E2 ¼ 1  dvm E2 ; E3 ¼ 1  dvm E3
>
< 1
in each element. Secondly, the damage model is defined on  
G12 ¼ 1  dvfm G12 ; G23 ¼ G23 ; G31 ¼ G31 (5)
this basic model to predict the burst pressure by using pro- >
>
:
gressive damage model. w12 ¼ 0; w23 ¼ w23 ; w31 ¼ w31
The strain-based Hashin progressive damage model is
dvf , dvm and dvfm represent the viscidity damage value of fiber
used to describe the damage of composite material. On the
damage, matrix damage and interface damage, respectively,
basis of ABAQUS software, UMAT subroutine was used to
and their values range from 0 to 1. Viscidity damage is only
define the damage model of each element. The definition of
used for the calculation of stiffness attenuation, because the
the damage model is consistent with the method in Reference
abrupt change of modulus leads to numerical simulation
[29]. The strain-based Hashin progressive damage model is
based on implicit programs (such as ABAQUS/Standard), and
shown in Table 3.
the reduction of the stiffness matrix of the element will lead to
When the fibers fail,
the difficulty of calculation convergence, leading to the pre-
8   mature termination of calculation. The relationship between
>
>
< E1 ¼ 1  df E1 ，E2 ¼ E2 ; E3 ¼ E3
v
viscidity damage and damage is shown in Eq. (6). The change
G12 ¼ G12 ; G23 ¼ G23 ; G31 ¼ G31 (3)
>
> rate of viscous damage in the current incremental step is,
:
w12 ¼ 0; w23 ¼ w23 ; w31 ¼ w31
1 
d_x ¼ dx  dvx ; x ¼ ff ; m; fmg
v
When the matrix fails, (6)
h
8    
> E ¼ E1 ，E2 ¼ 1  dvm E2 ; E3 ¼ 1  dvm E3 where, dx represents the damage value obtained by the pre-
>
< 1   vious calculation, dvx is the regularized viscous damage value, h
G12 ¼ 1  dvfm G12 ; G23 ¼ G23 ; G31 ¼ G31 (4)
>
> is the viscous coefficient, referring to the previous experience
:
w12 ¼ 0; w23 ¼ w23 ; w31 ¼ w31 by Lapczyk [30], 0.005 is the value in this paper. The viscous
When both the matrix and the fiber fail regularization method can keep the tangent stiffness of the

Table 3 e Strain-based damage criterion.

Damage model Failure criterion
Tension in fiber direction If ε11 > 0

Compression in fiber direction If ε11 < 0

Tension of matrix If ε22 þ ε33 > 0

compression of matrix If ε22 þ ε33  0

Delamination If ε33 > 0

Delamination If ε33 < 0

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damaged element as positive definite matrix in a small in- strain is not along the fiber direction, the coordinate system
cremental step, which ensures the convergence of the whole transformation is needed ε0nþ1 ¼ T : εnþ1 , T is the trans-
solution. formation matrix. Then the above Hashin criterion is used to
The regularization damage value at the nþ1 increment determine the damage. If no damage occurs, the stress is
step can be expressed as directly calculated without stiffness attenuation, and the
stress is transformed into the calculation coordinate system
Dt h
dvx;nþ1 ¼ dx;nþ1 þ dv (7) in the finite element model by using the transformation
h þ Dt h þ Dt x;n
relation. If it is determined that the element has been
This paper is based on the implicit algorithm of ABAQUS damaged, the corresponding modulus is decreased. The cycle
2017 64-bit software, which can effectively connect UMAT continues until the incremental step is completed.
subroutines and integrate the new material model into them.
The used computer processor is the Xeon(R) GOLD 5118 with
256 GB of memory. Test
Newton's iterative method was adopted, with a conver-
gence threshold of 106, and the geometric nonlinearity Fabrication of DR parts
considered in the analysis. The strain output by ABAQUS was
logarithmic strain LE, which was the integral of the whole The DR part is made of composite materials, the fiber is the
strain path, as shown in Eq. (8). same as the external composite, which is T720SC produced by
Toray® Japan. The epoxy resin is produced by ALZChem®
Zln
dl ln Germany. The manufacturing process of DR part is shown in
ε¼ ¼ ln (8)
l l0 Fig. 5.
l0
First, a full size liner is set up on the winding machine, as
In the formula, l0 and ln represent the length before and shown in Fig. 5a. The shape of the molded dome is used to
after the change respectively, and ε represents the logarithmic ensure that the shape is consistent with the cylinder liner to
strain in the case of geometric nonlinearity. Logarithmic be produced. Due to the limitation of test conditions, only the
strain is used to avoid strain inaccuracy after large full size cylinder liner can be used, and sand mold can also be
deformation. used in the future to reduce costs. Next, wrap the fibers
How the subroutines work is shown in Fig. 4, Firstly, the around the liner as shown in Fig. 5b and c, and make the
cumulative total strain in current increment is calculated reinforcement parts with the specified thickness and angle.
εnþ1 ¼ εn þ Dε, Dε is strain increment. Since the calculated Since the hoop winding cannot provide reinforcement for the

Fig. 4 e Flowchart of UMAT subroutine.

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Fig. 5 e Fabrication of DR (Dome Reinforcement) parts.

Fig. 6 e Production of winding sample.

23786 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 2 3 7 7 9 e2 3 7 9 4
Fig. 7 e Burst test.
dome, only helical winding is carried out. Subsequently, the
resin is cured at high temperature. During the curing process,
the workpiece needs to be rotated to ensure the external
surface is smooth and uniform, as shown in Fig. 5d. After
curing, the saw machine was used to cut down the dome
along the equator line, as shown in Fig. 5e. The final shape of
the DR part is shown in Fig. 5f. DR parts with winding angles of
20 , 45 and 60 are named Dome-20, Dome 45 and Dome 60,
respectively.
Trial production of winding
In order to verify the effect of DR technology, the DR part is
embedded in the composite layer of the gas cylinder, and the
production process of hydrogen storage vessel winding with DR
parts is shown in Fig. 6. Firstly, the DR parts are mounted on the
liner, ensure that the inner wall of the reinforcement and the
outer wall of the inner liner are mutually compatible, as shown
in Fig. 6b. Secondly, helical winding is adopted to reinforce the
dome (as shown in Fig. 6c), and fibers are wound to complete the
Fig. 8 e a) deformation of the composite layer; b) stress along the fiber near the equator.
Fig. 9 e Fiber stress distribution without DR @180 MPa.
whole winding process. Finally, the DR parts are cured together
with the subsequent wound fibers to make the sample.
Burst test equipment
As shown in Fig. 7, water is used as the medium to provide the
pressure needed for burst. The burst machine can provide a
max burst pressure of 250 MPa. In the whole test process, the
pressure loading rate is 0.35 MPa/s, which was completely in
accordance with the test standard of ISO19881.
Results and discussion
Results of simulation
Results near equator
According to ellipsoid dome membrane stress model, it is
known that, when the ellipsoidal dome parameter b/a (a: long
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 2 3 7 7 9 e2 3 7 9 4
Fig. 10 e Fiber stress distribution of DR @180 MPa.
axis of ellipsoid, b: short axis of ellipsoid) is equal to 0.7, the
stress of circumferential near equator position is “000 , when
the dome parameter b/a less than 0.7, the stress near equa-
torial position appear compressive, at the equator, the com-
posite shrinks inward, and the innermost layer of the
composite appears tensile stress under the action of bending
load [31], and the deformation and stress state near the
equator with the dome parameter b/a ¼ 0.4 are shown in Fig. 8,
as shown in Fig. 8a, the composite shrinks inward near the
equator. As shown in Fig. 8b, bending load and inward-
squeezing load occur at the equator, and compressive stress
23787
Fig. 11 e Stress distribution along radial direction at the
middle position @180 MPa.
occurs at large angle helical winding (e.g. 65 ), but the stress
with small angle helical winding (e.g. 20 ) is more complex,
with tensile stress inside but compressive stress outside.
Fig. 9 shows the stress along the fiber direction of the
innermost hoop and helical winding layer. It can be seen that
the stress in the direction of the helical winding fiber has a
small variation in the cylinder section and a large variation
near the equator under the pressure of 180 MPa without DR.
The stress increased near the equator in the direction of the
innermost helical layer, rising from 1166 MPa to 4661 MPa,
exceeding the limit value of the fiber stress, the main reason is
that the dome parameter b/a is less than 0.7, when the burst
pressure is loaded, the dome equatorial position will be
destroyed before the cylinder section.
Influence of DR angle
Non-damage model was used to simulate the cylinder stress
distribution of 20 , 45 and 60 DR parts, and the influence of
different angles on the cylinder stress distribution was stud-
ied. The equatorial thickness of all DR parts is 3 mm, and the
equatorial angle is 20 , 45 and 60 , respectively. The angle and
thickness distribution of the rest of DR parts are based on the
geodesic winding law. Fig. 10 lists the stress distribution along
the fiber direction innermost hoop winding and the innermost
helical winding, it can be seen that at 180 MPa, with the
embedding of the DR part, the stress along fiber direction
presents a downward trend, which is mainly reflected in the
decrease of the stress along fiber direction in the helical
wrapping of dome position, but the hoop fiber stress is almost
not affected. Compare the stress distribution of different angle
on the DR, it can be seen that the Dome-20 reinforcement has
an obvious effect on reducing the stress of helical wound
along fiber direction, reduced from 4600 MPa without rein-
forcement to 3000 MPa, which ensures the safety of the head.
However, as the angle of DR increases, the coverage scope
decreases, for example, the coverage of the Dome-60 is the
smallest among the three, covering only about 40% of the
dome area, and its effect on the stress reduction of helical
wound fiber is also the smallest. The stress of helical wound
23788 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 2 3 7 7 9 e2 3 7 9 4
Fig. 12 e Maximum stress near the equator at @180 MPa.
fiber fluctuates at the equator, but the stress level is around
4000 MPa.
On the whole, the reinforcement part of Dome-20 has the
most significant effect on reducing the stress of helical wound
along fiber direction, and the stress level of helical wound is
reduced to about 2000 MPa. The peak of stress was transferred
from the dome area to the cylinder section. This phenomenon
occurs mainly because Dome-20 is located inside the com-
posite layer. According to the membrane stress model anal-
ysis, the fiber near the equator is affected by the bending
moment, the inner fiber is subjected to tensile stress, The
Dome-20 has sufficient bending stiffness compared with
Dome 45 and Dome 60 to resist bending torque near the
equator, resulting in reduced stress levels at the dome. At the
same time, the stress distribution along the thickness direc-
tion in the middle of the cylinder section was monitored. As
shown in Fig. 11, it can be seen that the DR has almost no
influence on the stress of the cylinder section.
Influence of DR thickness
As shown in Fig. 12, a non-damage model was used to simu-
late the stress distribution of the DR with the thickness of
1 mm, 3 mm and 5 mm under 180 MPa. It can be seen that with
the increase in the thickness of the reinforcement, the fiber
stress near the equator decreases gradually, while in the cyl-
inder body increases gradually.
The stress distribution of cylinder section is shown in
Fig. 13, where the maximum stress is marked, it can be seen
that when the thickness of the DR is 1 mm, the stress along
fiber direction is 2605 MPa; when the thickness of the DR in-
creases to 5 mm, the stress drops to 2585 MPa, 0.76% down
compared with 1 mm. The stress state of the entire cylinder is
in a safer state, which means that the burst pressure is higher.
According to the lay-up design shown in Fig. 3, the thick-
ness of the helical winding layer is about 10.0 mm, and the
coefficient k in netting theory (Eqs. (1) and (2)) is less than 1 to
ensure the safety mode of blasting, 10.0 mm thickness is close
to the minimum allowable value of the helical winding layer,
however, the strength of the helical winding layer is surplus at
the cylinder section. When the coefficient k ¼ 1, the pressure
vessel is simplified into a pipe by ignoring the strength of the
dome and only considering the strength of the cylinder sec-
tion. And the required helical winding thickness is about
5.6 mm, as shown in Fig. 14. The purpose of using DR parts is
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 2 3 7 7 9 e2 3 7 9 4 23789

Fig. 13 e Maximum stress of cylinder body at @180 MPa.

to reduce the thickness of helical winding layer, so as to from which it can be predicted that the burst location should
reduce the weight of the cylinder. The remaining 4.4 mm be at the equator of the dome.
thickness in the dome section is the theoretical critical value In Fig. 16, for the pressure vessel with reinforcing parts,
of the thickness of the DR part. When exceed 4.4 mm, there is when the load is loaded into the 105 MPa, there is no damage,
residual strength in the dome section, and the fiber con- but the load to 192 MPa, fiber damage occurs at the dome
sumption is too large. Therefore, DR parts with a thickness of position, but no penetrating damage is formed. The hoop
3 mm are selected as the research object. winding layer fracture completely under 192 MPa, however,
no fiber breakage occurred in the helical wound layer of the
Weight optimized analysis and burst simulation cylinder body, combined with the damage analysis of the
From the above analysis, it can be concluded that the DR helps
to reduce the stress at the equator of the dome and may
transfer the maximum stress to the cylinder section. There-
fore, the weight of the wound layer of composite material can
be optimized to reduce the amount of carbon fiber with DR.
The finite element model established by ABAQUS including
the damage model was used to predict the burst pressure. In
Fig. 15, it can be seen that, without DR, the fiber damage first
occurs at the equatorial position of the dome when the
loading load reaches 161 MPa, and no fiber damage occurs in
the cylinder body. In the process of loading to 187 MPa, the
fiber damage near equator of the dome is continuously accu-
mulated, and finally a penetrating damage zone is formed, Fig. 14 e Minimum thickness required for helical winding.
23790 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 2 3 7 7 9 e2 3 7 9 4

Fig. 15 e Fiber damage (without DR).

Fig. 16 e Fiber damage (only with DR).

Fig. 17 e Fiber damage (with DR þ Lack 2 helical layers).

 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 2 3 7 7 9 e2 3 7 9 4
Fig. 18 e Fiber damage (with DR þ Lack 2 helical & 4 hoop layers).
dome fiber, it can be known that the thickness of the helical
wound layer is surplus, and which can be reduced in weight.
Figs. 17 and 18 represent the fiber damage reduced by 2
layers of helical winding, 2 helical layers and 4 hoop layers,
respectively. The main fiber damage still occurs in the cylin-
der body, and the predicted burst location is in the middle, and
the burst mode is a safe mode.
Fig. 19 shows the relationship between burst pressure and
axial (radial) displacement in the burst simulation. According
to report of Leh [32], the burst mode of gas cylinders can be
predicted from them. As shown in Fig. 19, without dome
reinforcing, the axial displacement curve turns at 180 MPa, but
the radial displacement shows no obvious trend, it showed
that the predicted burst pressure of simulation is 180 MPa. The
axial displacement becomes larger and larger after 180 MPa,
indicating that the blasting mode is unsafe, combined with
the damage simulation, the first location of fiber damage is at
the equator of the dome, which indicates the feasibility of
blasting model prediction.
In the burst simulation with DR (Dome-20), it can be seen
that the axial displacement curve with the reinforcement is
opposite to the curve without the DR, at the same time, the
Fig. 19 e Displacement burst pressure curve.
23791
radial displacement with the reinforcement showed an
obvious mutation trend, indicating that the fiber damage had
produced a penetrating damage zone at the moment, and the
predicted bursting pressure was 192 MPa.
Table 4 shows the cylinder weight under different pro-
posals. It can be seen that the DR technology can reduce cyl-
inder weight, and the fiber composite material reduced by
about 6.3%.
Burst pressure and burst mode
Fig. 20 shows the actual burst mode of pressure vessel, to
verify the reproducibility of the test, three times of repeated
tests were carried out for without DR parts, and two times of
repeated tests were carried out for the DR parts (the third test
failed to burst because of the leakage).
Fig. 20a shows the result of burst without DR and Fig. 20b
with DR (dome-20, With DR þ Lack 2 Helical & 4 Hoop). It can
be seen that after the burst test, the entire composite material
layer outside the cylinder has been damaged. However, in
Fig. 20a, the dome section is almost separated from the cyl-
inder body, in Fig. 20b, the dome and cylinder body remain as
a whole, and the burst mode is consistent with the simulated
prediction results.
The actual burst pressure and the average actual weight
are shown in Fig. 20c, from which it can be seen that the
burst pressure are all exceed 175 MPa, meet the re-
quirements of design standards ISO19881. For cylinders
without DR, the burst pressure is high, and the burst mode
is not safe, but for cylinders with DR, the burst pressure can
also meet the requirements, and the burst mode is safe,
specially the weight is reduced by 5.5%. Roh [2] uses dome
reinforcing technology to save about 10% of composite
material weight. Consideration of defects such as pores will
lead to the degradation of composite properties in the actual
fiber winding process, the weight reduction ratio of the
technology studied in this paper is different from the results
of Roh [2], but the optimization trend is consistent, which
achieves the purpose of reducing the amount of carbon
fiber.
23792 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 2 3 7 7 9 e2 3 7 9 4

Table 4 e Weight comparison of hydrogen storage vessels.

Predicted bursting pressure Requirement:175 MPa Predicted weight Weight reduced
Without DR 187 42.6 e
Only with DR 192 44.1 þ3.5%
With DR þ Lack 2 helical 192 41.5 2.6%
With DR þ Lack 2 helical & 4 hoop 176 39.9 6.3%

Fig. 20 e Burst pictures and burst pressure.

Conclusion
In this paper, the DR technology of Type IV hydrogen storage
vessel is studied, including reducing the weight of carbon fiber
in hydrogen storage vessel and optimizing the burst mode.
The effect of the fiber stress at the dome equatorial position on
the burst mode was studied. And the effects of thickness and
angle of DR parts on burst pressure were also studied. The
reinforcement design scheme of the dome was optimized by
taking damage into account in composite material, and the
blasting results of the reinforced parts and the non-
reinforcement were compared. The main finding was sum-
marized below.
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 2 3 7 7 9 e2 3 7 9 4
1. The weak area of the whole cylinder was near the equator
of the dome. The fiber stress near the equator affects the
burst mode.
2. The angle of DR parts affects the reinforcing effect. The
smaller the angle of DR parts, the better the reinforcing
effect.
3. The stiffness damage model based on Hashin criterion can
effectively characterize the matrix cracking and fiber
fracture, and the predicted burst mode was consistent with
the test results.
4. The DR parts were helpful to improve the fiber damage
state near the equator, the maximum stress was trans-
ferred to the cylinder section, and keep the burst mode
safety.
5. The DR technology help to reduce the consumption of
carbon fiber, which can reduce the consumption of carbon
fiber composite material by up to 5.5%.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This research is supported by the hydrogen storage vessel
program of YAPP (No. YAPP0437).
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