A new method for predicting dome thickness of composite pressure vessels

Abstract

This research aims to establish a new method to predict the dome thickness of composite pressure vessels. A cubic spline function was presented to calculate the dome thickness. Using this cubic spline function, the dome thickness of an arbitrary composite pressure vessel was forecasted. The predictive results were compared with the existing methods and actual measured thickness. Then, the accuracy of this cubic spline function was discussed for predicting the dome thickness of composite pressure vessels with different polar radii and different fiber band width values. The results showed that dome thickness obtained from the cubic spline function could reflect the actual measured thickness well and it could provide an accurate model for the finite element analysis.