Thickness-Prediction Method Involving Tow Redistribution for the Dome of Composite Hydrogen Storage Vessels

Traditional thickness-prediction methods underestimate the actual dome thickness at polar openings, leading to the inaccurate prediction of the load-bearing capacity of composite hydrogen storage vessels. A method of thickness prediction for the dome section of composite hydrogen storage vessels was proposed, which involved fiber slippage and tow redistribution. This method considered the blocking effect of the port on sliding fiber tows and introduced the thickness correlation to predict the dome thickness at polar openings. The arc length corresponding to the parallel circle radius was calculated, and then, the actual radius values corresponding to the bandwidth were obtained by the interpolation method. The predicted thickness values were compared with the actual measured thickness. The maximum relative error of the predicted thickness was 4.19%, and the mean absolute percentage error was 2.04%. The results show that the present method had a higher prediction accuracy. Eventually, this prediction method was used to perform progressive damage analysis on vessels. By comparing with the results of the cubic spline function method, the analysis results of the present method approached the actual case. This showed that the present method improved the accuracy of the design.