National projects
The project “Safe hydrogen gas tank dedicated to vehicles” (PB_MAWO) is supported by an earmarked grant from the President of the Lukasiewicz Center.
Total value of the project: 5 378 753,38 PLN
Funding: 4 100 651,10 PLN
The project aims to develop a type IV compressed hydrogen tank for vehicle applications. The work will define the technical and formal requirements for the tank. Formal approval requirements will be the basis for defining the scope of tank testing. Materials for the core and composite braid will then be selected and tested. In the next step of the work, a conceptual and preliminary design of the tank will completed together with a detailed FEM computational model. Subsequently, technologies for manufacturing the tank core and composite braid will be developed. It is planned to use rotomoulding technology for the core and composite roving winding for the braid. In order to increase the competitiveness of the product on the market, the design work included the development of a structural condition monitoring system to detect tank damage and tank overpressure, the development of layers to protect the tank from mechanical and chemical damage. Work is also planned for the development of a graphene-doped composite barrier coating. In the next phase of the project, prototype tanks will be manufactured, the developed prototypes will be provided with tensometers and subjected to leak testing and hydrostatic burst testing. The computational model will be correlated with the test results, followed by structural optimisation. Once changes have been made to the design, further tanks will be made and tested. In this phase of the research, a pressure cycle test at ambient temperature, a mechanical damage tolerance test and a chemical resistance test of the structure were planned. In the event of a negative test result, changes will be made and the test will be repeated. In the final stage of testing, hazardous tests such as the penetration test (tank space), fire resistance test and hydrogen permeability test will be carried out. The developed design methodology, fabrication technology and test methodology will be commercialised upon completion of the project.
