A THEORETICAL AND DESIGN ANALYSIS OF THE FILAMENT-WOUND COMPOSITE PRESSURE-VESSELS

Composite materials have been used extensively in aerospace engineering applications because of their excellent stiffness and strength-to-weight ratio. One of the common composite structures is the composite multilayered pressure vessels. These vessels are widely used in aerospace and commercial applications (as the pressure storages of air breathing systems). In this paper, the optimum number of layers, the optimum fiber orientation of each layer, and the required fiber tensioning in each layer during the winding process are determined. This optimum design enables the designer to calculate readily the minimum number of layers, the optimum fiber orientation and fiber winding tensioning in each layer for a specified internal pressure. The determination of the optimum number of layers, the optimum fiber orientations, and the fiber winding tensioning depends on the material properties of the components forming the vessel (liner and composite overwrap) and internal fluid pressure. The analytical results of this study agree well with published experimental data.