Composite Tank Reinforcements

Composite Tank

Hydrogen-powered electric vehicles are on the rise. Electrification of powertrains, along with current limitations in battery technology, give rise to hydrogen-powered, fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV), in particular for long-haul transport like trucks, buses and trains. However, one of the challenges for FCEV is to efficiently and safely store hydrogen (H2) in the vehicle.

Hydrogen for FCEV is typically stored in type IV composite pressure vessels. The high operating pressure requires a significant amount of carbon fiber for the vessel. With up to 700 bar nominal pressure, one tank consumes up to 10 kg of carbon fiber for every 1 kg of hydrogen stored. The carbon fibers of a high-pressure vessel typically represented more than 50% of the total cost of such storage system.

To support manufacturers of pressure vessels, we at Cevotec have developed an industrial solution to improve the storage efficiency and reduce the amount of carbon fibers by up to 15% while maintaining equivalent mechanical properties.

Cevotec’s solution are FPP systems dedicated to apply carbon fiber patches in the dome areas, and thereby replace the high-angle helical (HAHL) layers in a typical filament winding pattern. As the patches cover exactly the dome area and – unlike typical HAHL layers – do not span across the cylindrical part of the vessel, material and weight of the tank is reduced, as well as the manufacturing time needed on the filament winding line. Because of the significant portion of carbon fibers in the total vessel cost, the achievable material reductions present a very attractive business case for manufacturers, with a full payback for the necessary investment already in the first or second year of series production.