Effect of ply angle on the burst pressure of composite pressure vessels by filament winding

Abstract

A composite pressure vessel is an important structure in different applications including pipes, pipes under pressure and closed system pipes under high pressure and temperature such as gas pipelines and aircraft structures, because of the characteristics of polymer – a composite used as an alternative to heavy materials such as metal in the various applications, including the construction industry. The current work focuses on the study of strength phase orientation and their properties on the burst pressure strength and other parameters, which are very important in the design and manufacture of these vessels such as the selection of type of strength phase nylon 6, 6 and philosophy of mixing of the type of fiber with matrix material (epoxy). The work also includes the study of the effect of two layer angle ply (0, 90), (55, –55), (75, –75) and implements different material testing to evaluate the toughness and stiffness of these vessels and compare the experimental result with the theoretical result. A filament winding apparatus was designed and executed to manufacture different types of subjects according to these angle of ply nylon fiber. The mechanical tests (tensile test, drop test, pipe stiffness test, hydrostatic pressure test) were used to test the vessel. The results shown that the ply orientation (75, –75) has high (tensile strength, toughness, stiffness, impact and burst pressure) when compared with the results from other ply orientations. This shows that [75, –75] ply orientation is the optimal angle for the vessel. Tensile tests show that (75, –75) ply orientation samples have higher properties in two directions, longitudinal and transverse, when compared with other angles.

Keywords

• composite pressure vessels
• filament winding angle
• burst pressure