Finite element modeling of failure in IV type composite pressure vessel using WCM plug-in in ABAQUS software

Hydrogen has become an attractive source of energy for transportation industry, which is adaptable to the environment. Using composite pressure vessel type IV for storing compressed hydrogen gas seems to be a safety solution because of their ratio of strength to weight. Type IV composite pressure vessels consist of three main parts of polymeric liner, metallic boss and carbon fiber/epoxy composite shell. In the dome zones of these vessels, the thickness of composite layers and the fiber angle would increase because of accumulation of resin and reduction in radius. This issue is caused the modeling of these vessels to be a serious challenge. The WCM plug-in is presented for simulation of axisymmetric or three-dimensional composite pressure vessels type III and IV in ABAQUS software. In addition to the parameters like layer thicknesses and fiber angles, manufacturing parameters such as bandwidth, transition angle and end fraction could be also defined in this plug-in in order to achieve more accurate results. In this study, a type IV high pressure composite vessel with inner volume of two liters is modeled using the WCM plug-in in ABAQUS software. Numerical results are assessed by the available experimental results in the literature. Moreover, failure pressure of this vessel has been estimated by calculating the on-axis stresses and using failure criteria such as Tsai-Hill, Tsai-Wu and Hashin which is not done in other investigations.