Progressive damage analysis of full-wrapped composite gas cylinder under overload condition and prediction of its bursting pressure

Abstract

Fiber is widely used as a reinforcing material on the gas cylinder owing to good stiffness-to-weight and designability as well as high strength. However, it is difficult to analyze the failure process of a full-wrapped composite gas cylinder because of the anisotropy of composite material and compl exity of a full-wrapped geometric structure. In this study, the three-dimensional (3D) numerical model of a full-wrapped gas cylinder was first developed and used for calculating its stress distribution. And then the Hashin failure mode and reduction factor of elastic modulus were integrated into the numerical model by using a user subroutine. Lastly, the progressive damage process of the gas cylinder was analyzed in detail under overload conditions. The results indicated that the proposed progressive damage model could not only reproduce the damage process of the full-wrapped gas cylinder, but also predict the critical bursting pressure. This work will in the future help to guide the calculation of load-carrying capacity and failure analysis of the composite gas cylinder.