Development of a lightweight carbon fiber reinforced plastic water tank for fire trucks

Abstract

In the event of a fire outbreak, it is very important to extinguish it before it becomes a blaze. Since the increase in firefighting water capacity for this purpose leads to an increase in the vehicle's load, it is necessary to reduce the weight of the tank. In this study, by changing the material from stainless steel to CFRP, the weight of the firefighting tank was reduced by 47.9% while increasing the capacity by 13.3%. The CFRP tank was manufactured by a vacuum infusion process using 12k filament carbon fiber and vinyl ester resin. After driving a firetruck equipped with a firefighting water tank for 5000 km, the dissolution test and the test to withstand the internal pressure performed on the tank corroborated that it can be equipped on firetrucks and used as a drinking water tank.