JOURNAL OF

COMPOSITE
Article M AT E R I A L S

Journal of Composite Materials

2021, Vol. 55(28) 4 141­–4155
Development and analysis of composite ! The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/00219983211033568
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Osman Kartav1, Serkan Kangal1, Kutay Yücetürk2,

glu1, Engin Aktaş2 and H Seçil Artem1
Metin Tano�

Abstract
In this study, composite overwrapped pressure vessels (COPVs) for high-pressure hydrogen storage were designed,
modeled by finite element (FE) method, manufactured by filament winding technique and tested for burst pressure.
Aluminum 6061-T6 was selected as a metallic liner material. Epoxy impregnated carbon filaments were overwrapped
over the liner with a winding angle of 14 to obtain fully overwrapped composite reinforced vessels with non-identical
front and back dome layers. The COPVs were loaded with increasing internal pressure up to the burst pressure level.
During loading, deformation of the vessels was measured locally with strain gauges. The mechanical performances of
COPVs designed with various number of helical, hoop and doily layers were investigated by both experimental and
numerical methods. In numerical method, FE analysis containing a simple progressive damage model available in ANSYS
software package for the composite section was performed. The results revealed that the FE model provides a good
correlation as compared to experimental strain results for the developed COPVs. The burst pressure test
results showed that integration of doily layers to the filament winding process resulted with an improvement of the
COPVs performance.

Keywords
Composite overwrapped pressure vessels, filament winding, manufacturing, burst pressure, finite element analysis,
progressive damage, polymer composites

Introduction
Transportation systems providing service all over the
world are responsible for a significant fraction of the
world’s CO2 emissions. Hydrogen has a great potential
to be a clean and environmentally friendly energy car-
rier, especially for the transportation system because of
its zero gas emission and high energy efficiency.1
However, it needs to be stored safely and compactly
in order to be an alternative to fossil fuels. New gener-
ation hydrogen vehicles require approximately 4 kg of
hydrogen gas for 400 km continuous operation range,
which needs about 22.5 L internal volume. This internal
volume is considerably high for the new generation of
hydrogen vehicles and can be reduced by storing hydro-
gen at higher pressures (ex; 700 bar).2–4 Especially for
high-pressure hydrogen storage, composite overwrapped
pressure vessels (COPVs) play a very critical role due to
their excellent properties, such as high strength, excellent
fatigue, and corrosion resistance. Also, they have a
higher strength-to-weight ratio as compared to metallic
pressure vessels for similar tasks. Therefore, COPVs
have been used in applications such as onboard fuel
tanks for vehicles and aerospace power systems.5–9
Since COPVs are critical mediums for hydrogen
storage, it is essential to understand the performance
and failure mechanisms of these systems under pres-
sure. Some researchers reported the mechanical prop-
erties and burst pressure of composite vessels in the
literature.10–13 Shao et al. manufactured composite
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, _Izmir Institute of Technology,
Turkey
2
Department of Civil Engineering, _Izmir Institute of Technology, Turkey
Corresponding author:
Metin Tano�glu, Department of Mechanical Engineering, _Izmir Institute of
Technology, _Izmir, Turkey.
Email: metintanoglu@iyte.edu.tr
24142
vessels with epoxy and vinlyester matrices and carbon
fiber reinforcements with Al liner. Composite vessels
were subjected to hydrostatic test up to burst pressure
and deformations during loading were measured with
strain gages and digital image correlation (DIC) tech-
niques. Their findings revealed that the composite ves-
sels having vinlyester matrices exhibited a higher burst
pressure as compared to those with epoxy matrix.10
Shivamurthy et al. fabricated and tested epoxy-glass
COPVs with Al liner for high-pressure gas storage.
The aluminum (Al) liners were subjected to super plas-
tic deformation before the filament winding process.
The vessels were subjected to burst and cyclic tests.
The results showed no visible leakage after 5000
cycles of fatigue test.11 Harada et al. studied to predict
the burst pressure of Type-III COPVs by considering
the inhomogeneity of carbon fiber packing through
experimental work. The proposed method for predict-
ing the burst pressure enables to estimate the variations
of the burst pressure due to the change of fiber volume
fraction.12 Zu et al. proposed a design approach to
determine the optimal winding parameters of compos-
ite pressure vessels based on a non-geodesic trajecto-
ries. The optimal roving bandwidth and the number of
the tangent points on the fiber trajectory design were
determined, and the burst pressures of composite ves-
sels were determined experimentally and numerically.13
In addition to the helical and hoop layers over-
wrapped by the filament winding process, doily layers
may be adapted to the vessel structure to reinforce the
front and the aft dome sections of the vessels and to
improve the burst pressure performance of
COPVs.14–16 The front and aft dome sections of the
COPVs are known as the weakest portions of the ves-
sels. Since it is not possible to wind hoop layers directly
on the end domes by filament winding technique, an
additional layer, either a unidirectional or woven
fabric, can be incorporated on the end domes.17 The
doily layers are inserted between helical layers over the
dome sections in order to provide extra strength in the
circumferential direction. The dome section is rein-
forced along the longitudinal as well as the circumfer-
ential direction if woven fabrics are utilized. As a result,
the need for helical layers is reduced, and so, the total
amount of fiber usage is reduced. If the liner geometry
is not optimized for reducing the stress at the end
domes and the geodesic winding, utilization of the
doily layers may immensely increase the burst perfor-
mance of the COPV. Roh et al. studied finite element
analysis of a COPVs for hydrogen storage and their
study included an examination of the usage of doily
layers to reinforce the dome and the boss sections of
the COPVs. Their results revealed that the usage of
doily layers reduces the stresses near the dome end.14
Musthak et al. developed a mathematical model to
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predict the inter-laminar stresses and strains of the
COPVs. They also placed additional doily layers at
the aft dome sections. The developed mathematical
model for the composite tank was validated experimen-
tally. The composite tank burst pressure was found as
55.3 bar which is in agreement with model predictions.
Furthermore, it was revealed that the transverse shear
force was responsible for failures at pole openings and
hoop-doily junctions.16
In this study, high-pressure composite pressure ves-
sels (COPVs) with Al liners were designed, modeled,
manufactured by filament winding technique with var-
ious lay-up configurations and tested. The main objec-
tive of this study was to develop COPVs with 700 bar
working pressure and 1400 bar burst pressure.
Furthermore, doily layers were incorporated to the
front and aft ends of the COPVs to improve the
burst pressure performance of the vessels manufactured
with helical and hoop winding configurations.
The winding simulations were completed using
CADWINDTM CAM software. The final burst pres-
sure of COPVs was predicted by numerical analysis,
and the results were compared with the experimental
results. The manufactured COPVs were hydrostatically
loaded with increasing internal pressure up to the burst
pressure. During loading, the deformations over the
vessels and liners were measured locally using strain
gauges. A finite element analysis, featuring a simple
progressive failure model for the composite section
was performed in order to predict and compare with
the experimental results. To our knowledge, there is
very limited number of works published in the litera-
ture investigating the effect of doily layers on the burst
pressure performance and failure mode of COPVs
based on experimental and numerical approaches.
Also, there is a lack of information about the design
of high pressure COPVs and the effect winding lay-up
configurations on burst pressure performance of the
composite vessels.
Materials and methods
In this study, carbon fiber filaments (TorayTM
T700SC-12K-50C, 12 K) with a tensile strength of
4.9 GPa and Young’s modulus of 230 GPa were used
as the reinforcement material. A three-component,
high-temperature cure epoxy system (HuntsmanTM
Inc.) was selected as the matrix material. The epoxy
system included Araldite MY740 epoxy resin, Aradur
MY918 curing agent, and DY062 accelerator. 6061-T6
aluminum liners with an average wall thickness of
6 mm were designed in this study and an Al liner man-
ufacturer was commissioned for production of the liner
prototypes. The geometry of the aluminum liner with
critical dimensions is shown in Figure 1.
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Figure 1. Technical drawing of the designed Al-6061-T6 liner.
Figure 2. (a) Tensile test specimen sectioned from the Al liner and (b) Al specimen loaded under tensile configuration.
Characterization of the mechanical behaviour
of the liner
A preliminary experimental investigation was con-
ducted to determine the mechanical behaviour and
post-yielding mechanical response of the Al liners. In
order to characterize the tensile properties of the Al
liner, tensile test specimens were sectioned from the
Al liner using a water jet, and the tensile tests were
performed over the prepared specimens. A view of
the sectioned specimen and the specimen under tensile
loading is given in Figure 2. At least five specimens
were tested to evaluate the mechanical properties
according to ASTM E8 – 16a.18 The crosshead speed
was set as 2 mm/min, and all testing was conducted at
41433
room temperature. The aluminum liners were manufac-
tured successfully according to design shown in
Figure 1. The mechanical behavior of the Al liner mate-
rial was characterized to provide data for FEA of the
liner and vessel, and the results were given in Table 1.
The experimentally determined mechanical properties,
especially yield strength, seems to be lower than the
values reported in the literature.19 The curvature of
the liner and flat clamping grip surface might contrib-
ute to this difference. Also, true strain-true stress graph
is given Figure 3. The COPV specimens were manufac-
tured successfully based on the designated orientations
listed in Table 2. An example of the manufactured
COPV is shown in Figure 4(b).
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Table 1. Mechanical properties of the Al 6061-T6 liner material obtained after mechanical testing.

Symbol Property Unit Value St. dev ()

ESL Young’s Modulus GPa 57.55 4.83

ry,SL Yield Strength MPa 240.3 6.52
rult,true True ultimate tensile strength MPa 317.0 10.9
v12,SL Poisson’s Ratio – 0.33

Table 2. Configuration of COPVs manufactured using filament

winding technique.

Number of Number of
doily layers doily layers
Winding layer used in front used in aft
Specimen ID orientation dome dome

ALCF 1 [14 9/90 ]14 – –

ALCF 2 [14 9/90 ]16 – –
ALCF 3 [14 12/90 ]22 – –
ALCF 4 [14 13/90 ]22 – –
ALCF 5 [14 9/90 ]14 7 –
ALCF 6 [14 9/90 ]14 11 –
ALCF 7 [14 9/90 ]14 15 –
ALCF 8 [14 9/90 ]14 17 –
ALCF 9 [14 9/90 ]14 17 5
Figure 3. True stress strain graph of the aluminum liner. ALCF 10 [14 9/90 ]14 17 9
ALCF 11 [14 9/90 ]16 17 9
ALCF 12 [14 9/90 ]16 17 9
Manufacturing of COPVs using filament winding ALCF 13 [14 9/90 ]15 17 9
technique
Prior to the filament winding process, winding simula-
attached over the front dome section. Carbon fiber
tions were conducted with CADWINDTM CAM soft-
based woven fabrics were used as doily layers. An
ware. After the completion of the simulation work, wet
example of the doily layers attached at the front
epoxy impregnated carbon filaments were wound over
dome are shown in Figure 5. Winding configurations
the Al liner based on helical and hoop winding config-
of manufactured COPVs are summarized in Table 2.
urations using a filament winding machine as shown in
Figure 3. In order to decrease the winding time, three After the winding process, the composite vessels were
carbon fiber rovings were used with a bandwidth of cured at 80  C for 2 hours and post-cured at 120  C for
4 mm for each roving. Fiber overlapping was observed 2 hours, using a rotating shaft in a curing oven. The
because of three carbon fiber usage but this overlap- single-ply thicknesses for helical and hoop plies were
ping was helpful to obtain full layer coverage.To ensure nearly 0.25 and 0.2 mm, respectively. The average total
that the Al liner was fully overwrapped with a compos- thicknesses of samples are 5.5 mm at the cylindrical
ite shell, 105% degree of coverage was selected in section and average radius are 153 mm.
CADWINDTM simulations. Based on the winding
parameters fed to the CAM software, it was observed Burst pressure testing
that a full coverage of the composite shell over the liner

may be achieved by only 14 helical winding angle. Internal hydrostatic pressure was applied to the
An example of the winding simulation and a helical COPVs to determine the burst pressure levels. The
layer winding are shown in Figure 4(a) and (b), local strain values over the surface of the vessels were
respectively. measured during the burst pressure test using strain
The COPVs with various number of layers and ori- gages attached at three selected position of the vessels.
entations were manufactured. The effect of the doily, Strain gage positions over the vessels, an example of
helical, and hoop layer orientations on the burst pres- the actual vessel specimen ready for burst pressure test-
sure of COPVs was investigated. The preliminary stud- ing, and the specimen in the test chamber prior to test-
ies showed that the COPVs were failed from the front ing with strain gage connections are shown in Figure 6
dome section. Therefore, doily layers were primarily (a) to (c), respectively.
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Figure 4. (a) An example of winding simulation of COPV and (b) helical layer winding of a COPV using filament winding equipment.
Figure 5. (a) COPV manufactured with helical layers of and
containing doily layers at the front dome and (b) Hoop layer.
Finite element modeling of COPVs
In addition to the above mentioned experimental work,
a finite element model was developed in ANSYS soft-
ware package for numerical evaluation of the mechan-
ical behavior of the COPVs under internal pressure.20
Global Cartesian coordinates (x, y, and z) were utilized
for the liner, the composite section, and the strain gage
positioning. Global cylindrical coordinates (r, h, and z)
were also employed for the boundary conditions of the
sectioned walls and several hoop and radial strains.
As well as the mentioned global coordinates, for
material and damage modeling, the local Cartesian
coordinates were employed, indicating 1 as fiber
41455
dominated direction, 2 as matrix dominated direction,
and 3 thickness (out-of-plane) direction.
Al 6061-T6 material was defined as an elasto-plastic
material. True stress – true strain behavior of Al 6061-
T6 was obtained from tensile testing of the specimens
sectioned from the liners. The multilinear isotropic
hardening model was employed for simulating the
mechanical behavior in the plastic region. The mechan-
ical properties of the filament wound composite rein-
forcement and the doily layers were adopted from the
literature.20,21 The mechanical properties employed in
ANSYS for composite reinforcement and the alumi-
num liner are given in Table 3.
Eight node solid hexahedral elements (SOLID185 in
ANSYS) with three degrees of freedom (UX, UY, and
UZ) were used for modeling the liner and all composite
reinforcement layers to evaluate 3 D stress states of the
composite section.
Composite layer orientations for the FE simulations
are given in Figure 7. In Figure 7 combination of hoop,
helical and doily layers for the composite pressure
vessel can be seen. The Al liner is covered completely
and the hoop wound region covers only the cylindrical
section of the liner. Doily layers are placed at the both
dome sections but in last three plies there is no aft doily
layers as indicated in the figure. Helical filament
wounded layers were homogenized as consecuti-
ve þ and – angle plies. The single-ply thicknesses for
helical and hoop plies were chosen as 0.25 and
0.2 mm, respectively. These values were obtained
from the manufacturing process. It is known that
hoop layer thickness is slightly higher than the helical
layer thickness due to the nature of the filament wind-
ing process.12,22 The contact between the Al liner and
the composite reinforcement was considered as perfect-
ly bonded. The Al liner loose its load-sharing capacity
after yielding and behaves as a membrane in which its
boundaries were determined by the composite over-
wrapped shell. Additionally, contacts between the heli-
cal, hoop and doily layers were also considered as
perfectly bonded.
64146
Figure 6. (a) COPV design showing the position of the strain gages, (b) an example of a COPV prior to testing, (c) COPV specimen
in the burst testing chamber.
The thickness and angle variations in the filament
winding process were defined to model from the data
gathered from the CADWIND CAD simulations for
the specific liner and the winding angle that was
employed in this study.
The implementation of a large number of helical,
hoop, and doily plies increased the total number of
elements and nodes of the final 3 D model of the
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COPV. Thus, the degrees of freedom of the system
increased extensively, which directly affects the solu-
tion time of the FE analysis. In order to counter this,
the hoop layers, which consist of two plies, each dedi-
cated for forward and backward circumferential wind-
ing, were merged to reduce the number of elements.
In h-dir, whole structure was reinforced symettri-
cally for both the liner and the composite shell, so it
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Table 3. Orthotropic elastic properties and stress limits of carbon fiber reinforced epoxy-based composites21 and experimental
mechanical properties of the aluminum liner.

Symbol Description Unit Value

Carbon fiber/Epoxy
E1 Longitudinal (fiber dominated) Modulus GPa 141
E2 ¼ E 3 Transverse (matrix dominated) Modulus GPa 114
v12 ¼ v13 Poisson’s ratio (in-plane) 0.28
v23 Poisson’s ratio (plane 2–3) 0.40
G12 ¼ G13 In-plane shear modulus GPa 5
G23 Shear modulus (plane 2–3) GPa 3.080
Xt Longitudinal (fiber dominated) Tensile Strength MPa 2080
Xc Longitudinal (fiber dominated) Compressive Strength MPa –1250
Yt Transverse (matrix dominated) Tensile Strength MPa 60
Yc Transverse (matrix dominated) Compressive Strength MPa –290
S12 In-plane shear strength MPa 110
Doily layers (carbon woven/epoxy)
E1,d Longitudinal (fiber dominated) Modulus GPa 60
E2,d ¼ E3,d Transverse (matrix dominated) Modulus GPa 60
v12,d ¼ v13,d Poisson’s ratio (in-plane) 0.04
v23,d Poisson’s ratio (plane 2–3) 0.3
G12,d ¼ G13,d In-plane shear modulus GPa 175
G23,d Shear modulus (plane 2–3) GPa 2.7
Xt,d Longitudinal (fiber dominated) Tensile Strength MPa 513
Xc,d Longitudinal (fiber dominated) Compressive Strength MPa –437
Yt,d Transverse (matrix dominated) Tensile Strength MPa 513
Yc,d Transverse (matrix dominated) Compressive Strength MPa –437
S12,d In-plane shear strength MPa 120
Al liner
ESL Young’s Modulus GPa 57.548
v12,SL Poisson’s Ratio 0.3
ry,SL Yield Strength MPa 240.3
Etan Bilinear Isotropic Hardening Tangent Modulus MPa 950

was assumed that no rotational deformation will occur.
This phenomenon provides sectioning of the full model
by 1/16. The sectioning of the model created additional
faces that need boundary conditions to be applied.
Faces denoted as A and B indicates the high and low
boundaries for the axsymmetry in h-dir. For sectioned
composite and liner Faces A & B uh ¼ 0 was employed
and, ur and uz were unrestricted as shown in Figure 8.
A notable outcome of the increasing number of
composite layers was that the mesh structure tends to
be distorted in certain regions of the COPV.
Specifically, in the transition region from the boss to
the dome section of the COPV, the mesh size becomes
increasingly smaller at the outermost layer of the tran-
sition curvature. At a certain number of helical layers,
the mesh becomes completely distorted, and the model
is not admissible to perform any FE analysis. Even
with a slightly lowered number of helical layers, con-
vergence problems arise with the small mesh size and
flexural loads. To prevent this, a change in boundary
conditions was proposed and shown in figure. The sur-
faces, which were resulted from removing the boss
region of the vessels, were considered as fixed faces
(ux ¼ uy ¼ uz ¼ 0 at fixed composite and liner face in
Figure 8). Preliminary analysis showed that the remov-
al of the non-critical boss region dramatically improves
the convergence and the burst pressure prediction accu-
racy of the analysis. The removal of the boss region
also reduced the number of elements of the model,
which again decreases the solution time of the analysis.
The implementation of doily layers to the FE model
requires a careful definition of hoop and doily regions
with their respective thickness variations. Otherwise,
unrealistic composite buildups may occur in the tran-
sition region. The final form of the transition region
configured and validated with the manufactured speci-
mens is shown in Figure 9. The merged forward and
backward circumferential winding of hoop layers can
clearly be seen, and the doily layers were visible as
thicker plies at the front dome region. The doily
84148
Figure 7. A schematic illustration of COPV configurations.
Figure 8. Boundary conditions for aluminum based COPVs: (a) left view and (b) front view.
layers in all simulations were modeled as woven carbon
fiber plies in contrast with helical and hoop plies, which
were unidirectional.
A comparison with the full model was also per-
formed in previous studies23 by employing a very sim-
ilar COPV model for the deformational behavior of the
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vessel in order to validate the boundary conditions of
the 1/16 3 D model. It was reported that the mechanical
behavior of the COPVs in critical regions for both
models showed a negligible difference. 1/16th of the
full model provided sufficient clearance from the
boundaries which model behaviour might be affected.
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Figure 9. The transition region from the cylindrical section to the front dome of the Al-based COPV.
Figure 10. The flowchart for the progressive damage analysis of
the composite reinforcement of the vessel.
A preliminary mesh convergence study was conducted
to select the best mesh size for both solution accuracy and
computing time. It was concluded that the average of
5 mm element edge size was the optimum value for both
the liner and the composite layer modeling. The final 3 D
model consists of 37,648 nodes and 30810 elements for the
specimen configurations of ALCF 11 and 12, which con-
tain the highest number of composite layers.
A representative algorithm for progressive failure of
the composite reinforcement was shown in Figure 10.
41499
Hashin failure criterion, which is widely used as a
composite first ply failure theory and also available as a
built-in feature in ANSYS, was employed for the
damage onset of the composite reinforcement.24–26
ANSYS Workbench was used with Static structural
solution method. The criterion can identify the onset
of damage in different modes of failure, such as fiber
tension, fiber compression, matrix tension, and matrix
compression.27,28 Table 4 summarizes the failure modes
and the corresponding failure criteria that are included
in the Hashin failure theory for solid elements. Ff;t , Ff;c ,
Fm;t and Fm;c indicates damage indices of failure modes
fiber tension, fiber compression, matrix tension and
matrix compression, r and s indicates normal and
shear stresses respectively. Numerical subscripts indi-
cate the direction of stress and finally, X, Y and S
denotes stress limits in fiber, matrix and shear domi-
nated directions.
The damage evolution of the composite reinforce-
ment was dictated by a simple progressive damage
model. The damage model instantly reduces the rele-
vant mechanical properties of the elements if any fail-
ure criteria reaches the value of 1. This damage
evolution model, referred as Material Property
Degradation (MPDG) in ANSYS, is compatible with
3 D solid elements and the Hashin failure criteri-
on.24,26,30 The degradation coefficients for each failure
mode in the FE model were tabulated in table.
Once the damage is initiated, the stiffness of the
point of interest is reduced. Following the onset of
damage, material stiffness reduction occurs immediate-
ly. Therefore, the effective stress –the elastic strain rela-
tion is defined as in equation (1)
r ¼ ½D�d e (1)
The stiffness matrix ð½D�d ) can be modified for the
damage and shown (½D�d ) in equation (2). In the matrix,
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Table 4. The failure modes with the regarding Hashin failure criteria and material property degradation (MPDG) constants.28,29

Failure mode Failure criteria MPDG constants

� � � � � �
Fiber Tension r1 � 0 Ff ;t ¼ rX1t 2 þ Ss1212 2 þ Ss1313 2 0.9
� �
Fiber Compression r1 < 0 Ff ;c ¼ � Xr1c 0.9
� � � � � � � �
Matrix Tension r2 þ r3 � 0 Fm;t ¼ rY2t 2 þ Ss2323 2 þ Ss1212 2 þ Ss1313 2 0.1
�� � �
� r2 �2 �s23 �2 �s12 �2 2
Matrix Compression r2 þ r3 < 0 Fm;c ¼ 2S23 þ S23 þ S12 þ 2S13 � 1 rY2c Yc
0.1

df , dm and ds refer the damage variables for fiber), itself. For this study, 90% of reduction for fiber failures
matrix (and shear, respectively. and 10% reduction for the matrix is used. In case of a
2 3
fiber composite pressure vessel with a liner, the matrix is
ð1 � df ÞEf ð1 � df Þð1 � dm Þv21 Ef 0 just a medium to stack the fibers. Matrix crack initiation
14 5
½D�d ¼ ð1 � df Þð1 � dm Þv12 Ef ð1 � dm ÞEm 0
A
0 0 Að1 � ds ÞGfm
does notresult in global failure. In the experiments the
cracking sound is observed at high internal pressures
(2)
prior to failure of the vessel. On the other hand, fibers
are the main reinforcement of the vessel that lead to a
It should be noted that the damage modification is very sudden global failure once damaged, therefore the
introduced to A as a multiplier of undamaged very high reduction ratio is implemented.
Poisson’s ratio as in equation (3) Large deformation setting was enabled in the FE
software to cope with the sudden creep at levels close
A ¼ 1 � v12 v21 ð1 � df Þð1 � dm Þ (3) to burst pressure.
Analysis was set to 4 steps with a total of 1.5 s step
For tensile and compressive stress states at matrix end time. Minimum time step is set to 5E-4 which is
and fiber, different damage variables has to be found to be optimum since further decrement of step
defined as did not provide any improvement in solution.The burst
� pressure is defined by the latest converging solution
df;t ; if Ff;t > 0 that showed failure indications prior to end of conver-
df ¼ (4)
df;c ; if Ff;c > 0 gence. The strain values are extracted from the analysis
as nodal probe strains in Cartesian and cylindrical
�
dm;t ; if Fm;t > 0 coordinate systems that are relevant to the strain
dm ¼ (5) gauges in experiments.
dm;c ; if Fm;c > 0

ds ¼ 1 � ð1 � df;t Þð1 � df;c Þð1 � dm;t Þð1 � dm;c Þ (6) Results and discussion

Material Property Degradation(MPDG) is used with

Hashin failure criterion to simulate the evolution of
damage in a more realistic way. Unlike the numerical
solution, microfailures in matrix and fiber in real life
leads to redistribution of the stress to the neighboring
elements. However, the FE analysis is mesh dependent
and based on homogenized elements which is not capa-
ble to mimic the stress redistribution at micro-level.
MPDG employs a degradation on the material once
the failure limit is reached that enhance the stress redis-
tribution around the joint and prevents the premature
convergence problems. The degradation parameter dif-
fers within a range between 0 and 1 for each failure
mode.19,24,29 This parameter highly depends on the qual-
ity of production and materials as well as the FE model
Burst pressure testing results (experimental work)
The burst pressure tests were carried out for the COPV
specimens, and the results are given in Table 5. As seen
in the table, COPVs called as ALCF 1 to 4 have no
doily layers over the COPV structure. In this grup, the
number of helical and hoop layers were altered. As an
example, ALCF 1 vessel contains 9 layers of �14� heli-
cal and 14 layers of hoop wounded composite plies,
without any doily layer. This specimen exhibited a
1018 bar of burst pressure. In ALCF 1 to 4 grup, the
burst pressure values were measured in the range of
1018 to 1050 bar. The burst test results revealed that
there is no significant effect of the the helical and hoop
plies wounded over the vessel to further increase the
burst pressure values above some limit point. It was
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Table 5. The experimental results and numerical predictions of the burst pressure values and burst locations for the Al liner –
carbon/epoxy composite based COPVs with and without front and aft doily layers.
Exp. burst FEA burst
Composite layer Front doily Aft doily pressure pressure
Specimen ID orientation layers layers (bar) Exp. – burst location (bar) FEA – burst location

ALCF 1 [14 9/90 ]14 – – 1018 Front Dome (unsafe) 947 Front Dome (unsafe)
ALCF 2 [14 9/90 ]16 – – 1050 Front Dome (unsafe) – –
ALCF 3 [14 12/90 ]22 – – 1050 Front Dome (unsafe) – –
ALCF 4 [14 13/90 ]22 – – 1050 Front Dome (unsafe) – –
ALCF 5 [14 9/90 ]14 7 – 1146 Front Dome (unsafe) 1305 Cylindrical mid Region (safe)
ALCF 6 [14 9/90 ]14 11 – 1170 Front Dome (unsafe) 1222 Aft Dome transition (unsafe)
ALCF 7 [14 9/90 ]14 15 – 1264 Front Dome (unsafe) 1265 Aft Dome transition (unsafe)
ALCF 8 [14 9/90 ]14 17 – 1281 Aft Dome transition (unsafe) 1305 Cylindrical mid Region (safe)
ALCF 9 [14 9/90 ]14 17 5 1330 From Aft Dome to Cylindrical 1305 Cylindrical mid Region (safe)
mid Region
ALCF 10 [14 9/90 ]14 17 9 1355 Cylindrical mid Region (safe) 1305 Cylindrical mid Region (safe)
ALCF 11 [14 9/90 ]16 17 9 1397 Cylindrical mid Region (safe) 1428 Cylindrical mid Region (safe)
ALCF 12 [14 9/90 ]16 17 9 1480 Cylindrical mid Region (safe) 1428 Cylindrical mid Region (safe)
ALCF 13 [14 9/90 ]15 17 9 1387 Cylindrical mid Region (safe) 1388 Cylindrical mid Region (safe)

Figure 11. COPVs after burst testing: (a) front dome failure (ALCF 4) and (b) cylindrical section failure (ALCF 11).

observed that all the COPVs without doily layers failed
from the front dome region. This explains the limited
effect of the helical and hoop layer numbers on the
burst pressure level.
The COPVs called ALCF 5 to 8 contain additional
doily layers attached at the front dome section of the
vessels and ALCF 9 to 13 contain extra doily layers
positioned at the aft dome of the COPVs. For vessels
called ALCF 5 to 10, the number of helical and hoop
layers were kept constant while increasing the number
of doily layers to observe the effects of doily layers on
the burst pressure. Moreover, for COPVs called ALCF
11 to 13, extra hoop layers were attached to observe the
effect of the wounded hoop plies on the failure modes.
The burst pressure test results showed that the addition
of doily layers significantly improves the burst pressure
performance of the COPVs. The burst pressure values
increased from 1050 to 1355 bar (about 29% improve-
ment) due to the addition of front and aft doily layers
over the vessel structures. Furthermore, for the same
doily layer configuration (as an example, with 17 front
and 9 aft doily layers) further addition of hoop layers
4152
12
resulted with significant improvement of the burst pres-
sure up to 1480 bar (up to % 41 improvement). The
similar improvement by using doily layers can be seen
in the literature. This studies showed that using doily
layers improved the burs pressure performance of
COPVs.14–17
It was observed that due to the attachment of the
front and aft doily layers shifted the burst location
from the front bose position to the cylindrical mid
region of the vessel, as shown in Figure 10. As a
result of this, a desired safe burst mode that is expected
to occur in the midregion of the vessel may be
Figure 12. Experimental and predicted (FEA) strain values as a function of pressure along the hoop direction of specimens ALCF 11
(exp 1) and 12 (exp 2).
Figure 13. Experimental and predicted (FEA) strain values as a function of pressure along the axial direction of specimens ALCF 11
(exp 1) and 12 (exp 2).
Journal of of
Journal Composite Materials
Composite 55(28)
Materials 0(0)
obtained, as seen in specimen ALCF 11. 1400 bar is a
critical pressure value for COPVs, as it is double of
working pressure of high-pressure COPVs. The ISO
15,869 standard indicates a safety factor of 2 for fully
carbon fiber reinforced COPVs. So, specimens ALCF
11 to 13 satisfies this standard for this criterion.
Comparison of experimental and finite element
analysis results
The experimental results and numerical predictions of
the burst pressure and burst failure locations of the
Kartav
Kartav et
et al.
al.
COPVs made of Al liner, various helical and hoop
wounded carbon/epoxy plies with and without front
anf aft doily layers are given in Table 5. The results
revealed that the constructed 3 D FE model predicts
the burst pressure values within about 4.26% approx-
imation of the experimental values, for the specimens
called ALCF 6 to 13. In contrast, the prediction of
the failure modes or location of the burst failure
exhibited some variations as compared to experimen-
tal findings. This difference may be associated with
the assumption of the perfect bonding of the compos-
ite plies in the numerical simulations. In practice,
epoxy rich regions and voids together with imperfect
bonded interfaces are expected to form during
manufacturing of the COPVs, especially in the end
dome sections that contain a higher number of
doily layers.
In Al-based liner COPVs, mechanical properties of
CF reinforcement and the proper determination
of helical and hoop layers were vital as the number
of composite plies increases. In addition to the burst
pressure predictions, the strain behavior of the vessels
at the frontal, central and aft cylindrical sections was
measured using strain gauges and the measured
values were compared with the FEA results.
Figures 11 and 12 show the hoop and axial strain
Figure 14. Tensile damage variable: (a) matrix and (b) fiber.
Figure 15. Tensile damage variable: (a) matrix and (b) fiber.
4153
13
behavior of the central cylindrical region of ALCF
11 and 12 specimens, respectively. The strain value
predictions of FE correlates well with the experimen-
tal findings.
From the damage point of view the, the helical plies
are the critical plies that are winded in cylindirical por-
tion of the vessel. The overall damage status prior to
loss of convergence is given in Figure 13. Doily
strengthened dome to cylinder transition area is clearly
observable.
Inherently, the tensile failure criterias work for the
vessel under positive internal pressure as shown in
Figure 14. The matrix damage initates at cylindrical
zone and the tensile fiber damage initiates just next to
the doily zone which later follows an increased outward
radial deformation at cyclinder portion at the burst
pressure. Figure 15 shows the radial deformation
through the cylinder.
Outward deformation results in bending at the
dome-cylinder transition locations that may be
observed from matrix compression, which doesn’t
feed into fiber (Figure 16).
The numerical solution struggles to converge the
solution once the damage initiates, however the end
of convergence and the experimental results are consis-
tent in terms of failure mode and magnitude.
Figure 16. Radial deformation through the cylinder.
4154
14
Figure 17. Compressive damage variable: (a) matrix and (b) fiber.
Conclusions
Aluminum (Al) liner and carbon fiber reinforced epoxy
composite based COPVs with 14 helical and 90
hoop winding angle were designed, modeled and manu-
factured by filament winding technique. In addition to
the filament wound carbon fibers, carbon woven layers
were attached to the vessel structures as doily layers at
front and aft dome sections to improve the burst perfor-
mance and to induce burst failure at the cylindrical mid
section of the COPVs. The manufactured COPVs were
loaded hydrostatically up to the burst pressure to
investigate the effect of various number of helical,
hoop and doily layers on the performance of COPVs.
Furthermore, a FE model which features a simple pro-
gressive failure model for composite reinforcement and
thickness and fiber angle variations on the dome sec-
tions have been developed to analyze the mechanical
behavior and predict the burst pressure and burst loca-
tions of the vessels. The experimental measurements and
numerical findings led to the following conclusions;
• With COPVs containig 14 helical and hoop
wounded composite plies, without any doily layer a
burst pressure up to about 1050 bar can be achivable .
• However, for COPVs manufactured without using
any doily layers, there is no significant effect of
increasing the number of the helical and hoop plies
wounded over the vessel to further increase the burst
pressure values above some limit point. The failure
observed at the front dome region explains the lim-
ited effect of the helical and hoop layer numbers on
the burst pressure level.
• Addition of doily layers at the front and aft dome
sections improved the burst pressure performance of
the COPVs significantly (up to 29%) and the 1400
bar critical pressure value was reached. In this case,
a desired safe burst mode that is expected to occur in
the midregion of the vessel was succesfull obtained.
Journal of of
Journal Composite Materials
Composite 55(28)
Materials 0(0)
It is also observed that the constructed 3D FE model
well predicts the burst pressure value as compared to
the experimental findings of specimens. However,
the prediction of the location of the burst failure
has some variations from the experimental results.
This difference may be associated with the assump-
tion of the perfect bonding of the composite plies in
the numerical simulations. In practice, epoxy rich
regions and voids together with imperfect bonded
interfaces are expected to form during manufactur-
ing of the COPVs, especially in the end dome sec-
tions that contain a higher number of doily layers.
The variation between experimental and FE analysis
results also affected by the mechanical properties of
the composite reinforcement should not be over-
looked as the properties were obtained from the
literature.
• The strain behavior of the COPVs was measured
using strain gauges and the obtained values were
compared with the FEA results. The strain results
of FE correlates well with the experimental findings.
The above understandings may be useful for practi-
cal applications and future developments of COPVs for
high pressure gaseous strorage such as hydrogen.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial sup-
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article: This study was supported by TUB € ITAK
_ (Scientific
and Technical Research Council of Turkey) under
project number of 215M182. The authors acknowledge this
valuable support.
Kartav
Kartav et
et al.
al.
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