ROTATIONAL MOLDED ACETAL LINERS WITH FILAMENT-WOUND ACETAL/CARBON COMPOSITE OVERWRAP: NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR HYDROGEN STORAGE ON FUEL-CELL POWERED AUTOMOBILES

摘要

Fuel-cell powered vehicles (FCVs) offer great opportunities to reduce emissions and increase energy efficiency of personal and commercial transportation. However, there remain numerous and significant challenges that must be overcome before such technology is widely adapted - particularly for passenger cars. For example, although hydrogen is currently the preferred energy source for fuel cells, onboard storage of this extremely light fuel - either as a compressed gas under high pressure or as a liquid at cryogenic temperatures ― presents many issues. Current hydrogen storage vessels are too heavy, too bulky, store too little fuel to approach the driving range of conventional cars, and are too costly. Recognizing significant market opportunities should a better, lighter, and cheaper hydrogen storage vessel be developed, a consortium has been formed in the United Kingdom (UK) to explore design and production of a monolithic, all-thermoplastic Type IV cylinder. Now several years into research efforts, the consortium has arrived at a design for a rotomolded neat (unreinforced) acetal liner that is filament wound with a carbon fiber-reinforced acetal composite overwrap. Preliminary work and test results for this program will be presented in this report.