Optimum design of a toroidal pressure vessel of composite material for gas (CNG) powered vehicles

Abstract

In the present work to design is made, using numerical simulations, with the finite element method (FEM) to linear elastic analysis will be performed for the optimal design of a toroidal pressure vessel resistant, lightweight and capable of storing compressed natural gas (CNG) for vehicles. For the design the material AS/3501 (carbon fiber and epoxy matrix) is used, since there are studies th at indicate that, with this type of material, high resistances and better performance have been obtained than with metallic materials. The analysis will determine the influence exerted by the angular orientation of the layers in the strength of the laminate, in addition to the variation of stress, strain and displacement that occurs in the toroid, when it is subjected to pressure. The optimization of the volume of the material, will be made with the metaheuristic algorithm called Particles Swarm Optimization (PSO), which will use Threads in Java for the execution of the scripts developed in ANSYS for the analysis of the FEM and with which will be reduced computing times improving to the optimizer.