Integral Design for Filament-Wound Composite Pressure Vessels

Abstract

The most important issues for the integral design of a filament-wound pressure vessel reflect on the determination of the dome shape and applied winding patterns. The goal of this paper is to determine the meridian profiles of continuum-based domes for pressure vessels, and to demonstrate that the utilization of non-geodesic trajectories forms a favorable alternative to the dome design. An integral methodology for the design of such dome structures is outlined, with emphasis on the application of the non-geodesic winding law and the classical lamination theory. Based on the condition of equal shell strains, the governing equation for the shape of the dome meridian and the differential equation describing non-geodesic trajectories on the dome surface are derived. The meridian profiles of non-geodesics-based carbon-epoxy domes are obtained for various slippage coefficients; the structural efficiency of geodesics and non-geodesics-based domes for various polar radii are then calculated and compared to each other. The results concluded that filament-wound domes of pressure vessels designed using the non-geodesics provide better performance than geodesics-based ones.