Experimental and numerical study of hypervelocity impact damage on composite overwrapped pressure vessels

Ground-based tests are important for studying hypervelocity impact(HVI)damage to spacecraft pressure vessels in the orbital debris environment.We analyzed the damage to composite overwrapped pressure vessels(COPVs)in the HVI tests and classified the damage into non-catastrophic damage and catastrophic damage.We proposed a numerical simulation method to further study non-catastrophic damage and revealed the characteristics and mechanisms of non-catastrophic damage affected by impact conditions and internal pressures.The fragments of the catastrophically damaged COPVs were collected after the tests.The crack distribution and propagation process of the catastrophic ruptures of the COPVs were analyzed.Our findings contribute to understanding the damage characteristics and mechanisms of COPVs by HVIs.

Non-destructive Evaluation of Composite Pressure Vessel by Using FBG Sensors

In recent years, advanced composite structures are used extensively in many industries such as aerospace, aircraft, automobile, pipeline and civil engineering. Reliability and safety are crucial requirements posed by them to the advanced composite structures be- cause of their harsh working conditions. Therefore, as a very important measure, structural health monitoring （SHM） in-service is deft- nitely demanded for ensuring their safe working in-situ. In this paper, fiber Bragg grating （FBG） sensors are surface-mounted on the hoop and in the axial directions of a FRP pressure vessel to monitor the strain status during its pressurization. The experimental results show that the FBG sensors could be used to monitor the strain development and determine the ultimate failure strain of the composite pressure vessel.

APPLICATION OF SURROGATE BASED PARTICLE SWARM OPTIMIZATION TO THE RELIABILITY-BASED ROBUST DESIGN OF COMPOSITE PRESSURE VESSELS

A surrogate based particle swarm optimization （SBPSO） algorithm which combines the surrogate modeling technique and particle swarm optimization is applied to the reliability- based robust design （RBRD） of composite pressure vessels. The algorithm and efficiency of SBPSO are displayed through numerical examples. A model for filament-wound composite pressure vessels with metallic liner is then studied by netting analysis and its responses are analyzed by using Finite element method （performed by software ANSYS）. An optimization problem for maximizing the performance factor is formulated by choosing the winding orientation of the helical plies in the cylindrical portion, the thickness of metal liner and the drop off region size as the design variables. Strength constraints for composite layers and the metal liner are constructed by using Tsai-Wu failure criterion and Mises failure criterion respectively. Numerical examples show that the method proposed can effectively solve the RBRD problem, and the optimal results of the proposed model can satisfy certain reliability requirement and have the robustness to the fluctuation of design variables.

Theoretical study of failure in composite pressure vessels subjected to low-velocity impact and internal pressure

A theoretical solution is aimed to be developed in this research for predicting the failure in internally pressurized composite pressure vessels exposed to low-velocity impact.Both in-plane and out-of-plane failure modes are taken into account simultaneously and thus all components of the stress and strain fields are derived.For this purpose,layer-wise theory is employed in a composite cylinder under internal pressure and low-velocity impact.Obtained stress/strain components are fed into appropriate failure criteria for investigating the occurrence of failure.In case of experiencing any in-plane failure mode,the evolution of damage is modeled using progressive damage modeling in the context of continuum damage mechanics.Namely,mechanical properties of failed ply are degraded and stress analysis is performed on the updated status of the model.In the event of delamination occurrence,the solution is terminated.The obtained results are validated with available experimental observations in open literature.It is observed that the sequence of in-plane failure and delamination varies by increasing the impact energy.