Fiber-Reinforced Pressure Vessel Structure for Dome Boundary Strength
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Solution Overview
Problem
The existing fiber structures used in pressure vessels for fuel cell electric vehicles experience distortion at the boundaries between the body and dome portions, leading to reduced strength, and increasing the thickness of the fiber-reinforced base member to enhance strength unnecessarily increases weight and manufacturing costs.
Innovation Solution
A fiber structure with a fiber-reinforced base member that includes first sections covering the boundaries between the body and dome portions, featuring lower interlacing of yarns in these sections, and optionally reinforced with unidirectional prepregs, to enhance strength without increasing weight or costs.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Strength
If the thickness of the entire fiber-reinforced base member is increased to increase strength, then the strength of the fiber structure is improved, but the weight and manufacturing costs increase unnecessarily
Solution Approach 1:
The fiber-reinforced base member is designed with spatially varying thickness: thicker at the boundary between body and dome portions where distortion occurs, and thinner in other areas. This local quality variation ensures strength is enhanced only where needed, avoiding unnecessary weight increase in regions that do not require additional reinforcement.
Solution Approach 2:
The fiber-reinforced base member is segmented into different thickness zones: a first thickness in regions including the boundary between body and dome portions, and a second thickness (smaller than the first) in other regions. This segmentation allows targeted reinforcement at critical locations while maintaining weight efficiency elsewhere.
2Strength
If the thickness of the fiber-reinforced base member is increased uniformly, then the strength is improved, but the manufacturing costs increase unnecessarily
Solution Approach 1:
The base member exhibits local quality variation in thickness, being thicker only at the boundary region between body and dome portions where distortion occurs. This localized reinforcement approach reduces material consumption and manufacturing costs compared to uniform thickness increase, while still achieving the required strength enhancement at critical locations.
Solution Approach 2:
The base member is divided into segments with different thicknesses: a first thickness zone at the boundary and a second thickness zone elsewhere. This segmentation enables cost-effective manufacturing by concentrating material and processing resources only where structural reinforcement is necessary.
3Weight of moving object
If the fiber-reinforced base member is made thinner to reduce weight, then the weight is reduced, but the strength decreases at the boundary between body and dome portions
Solution Approach 1:
The base member is designed with different thickness qualities at different locations: thinner overall to reduce weight, but with a localized thicker region at the boundary between body and dome portions to maintain strength where distortion occurs. This local quality differentiation resolves the contradiction between weight reduction and strength maintenance.
Data Source
AI summary
A fiber structure includes a liner and a fiber-reinforced base member. The liner includes a cylindrical body portion, a dome portion, and a shoulder portion. The fiber-reinforced base member covers the liner from outside. The fiber-reinforced base member includes first yarns arranged such that yarn main axes extend in the axial direction, and second yarns arranged such that yarn main axes extend in a circumferential direction of the liner. The fiber-reinforced base member includes a first section covering at least a boundary between the body portion and the dome portion, and a second section that is a section excluding the first section. An average degree of interlacing between the first yarns and the second yarns is lower in the first section than in the second section.