Abstract
For future launch vehicles, lightweight cryogenic pressure vessels are required for storage of the liquid hydrogen fuel. For their structural assessment, reliable and validated failure criteria are required. The present contribution provides an overview over the results of an ongoing research activity concerned with the validation of Puck’s composite failure criterion in the cryogenic regime. In a first step, an experimental investigation on unidirectionally fiber reinforced materials on coupon level has been performed. This test campaign has been complemented by tests on small breadboard-type specimens with an angle-ply stacking sequence. The specimens were featuring holes and tapered sections to provide stress gradients and concentrations. Test were performed at ambient temperature and in a liquid Helium environment. Puck’s failure criterion has been applied and found to provide a good prediction of first ply failure in both environments.
Highlights
For generation launch vehicles, safe and reliable fuel vessels are required
The results reveal that by the decrease of the temperature from ambient temperature down to 4 K, the tensile and compressive strengths Rt22 and Rc22 perpendicular to the fiber direction increase by 22% and 70%, respectively
The present study is concerned with an assessment of the capability of Puck’s failure criterion to predict failure of carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) materials at ambient and cryogenic temperatures
Summary
For the storage of liquid hydrogen and oxygen, the respective vessels have to be able to withstand temperatures in the cryogenic regime down to 20 K. For their design, the use of carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) is mandatory for reasons of lightweight construction. The use of carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) is mandatory for reasons of lightweight construction Further to their low specific weight, the use of CFRP materials circumvents the problem of the embrittlement of most metals in the cryogenic temperature range. The safe design of CFRP pressure vessels requires the availability of validated failure criteria in all relevant temperature ranges. A variety of failure criteria for fiber reinforced plastics (FRP) such as the well-known Tsai-Wu criterion [19], the Hashin criterion [4, 5], the Puck criterion [16, 17]
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