Abstract
Fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) are being developed in order to reduce carbon dioxide and air pollution emissions, and CFRP pressure vessels have been used as the hydrogen storage systems. Since the FCVs are expected to increase driving distances of at least over 500 km, which is similar to those of conventional gasoline-fueled vehicles, the storage pressure of hydrogen must be raised from 35 MPa to 70 MPa. In order to promote the spread of the FCVs, the FCVs production cost must be reduced less than 10 million yen. Therefore, it is important to decrease the amount of carbon fibers in the CFRP pressure vessels. The authors developed CFRP pressure vessels reinforced with cylindrical shaped CFRP grids. The burst pressures of the CFRP pressure vessels with the cylindrical shaped CFRP grids were approximately 20 % higher than those of the CFRP pressure vessels without the cylindrical shaped CFRP grids. Moreover, the FEM results showed good agreement with experimental ones. In this study, an optimum structural design of the CFRP pressure vessels reinforced with cylindrical shaped CFRP grids was executed using FEM analysis, and the CFRP consumption for the 70MPa CFRP pressure vessels with and without the cylindrical shaped CFRP grids was compared.
