TY - JOUR

T1 - Validation of Selected Optical Methods for Assessing Polyethylene (PE) Liners Used in High Pressure Vessels for Hydrogen Storage

AU - Gąsior, Paweł

AU - Wachtarczyk, Karol

AU - Błachut, Aleksander

AU - Kaleta, Jerzy

AU - Yadav, Neha

AU - Ozga, Marcin

AU - Baron, Amelie

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

PY - 2021/6/18

Y1 - 2021/6/18

N2 - A polyethylene (PE) liner is the basic element in high‐pressure type 4 composite vessels designed for hydrogen or compressed natural gas (CNG) storage systems. Liner defects may result in the elimination of the whole vessel from use, which is very expensive, both at the manufacturing and exploitation stage. The goal is, therefore, the development of efficient non‐destructive testing (NDT) methods to test a liner immediately after its manufacturing, before applying a composite reinforcement. It should be noted that the current regulations, codes and standards (RC&S) do not specify liner testing methods after manufacturing. It was considered especially important to find a way of locating and assessing the size of air bubbles and inclusions, and the field of deformations in liner walls. It was also expected that these methods would be easily applicable to mass‐produced liners. The paper proposes the use of three optical methods, namely, visual inspection, digital image correlation (DIC), and optical fiber sensing based on Bragg gratings (FBG). Deformation measurements are validated with finite element analysis (FEA). The tested object was a prototype of a hydrogen liner for high‐pressure storage (700 bar). The mentioned optical methods were used to iden-tify defects and measure deformations.

AB - A polyethylene (PE) liner is the basic element in high‐pressure type 4 composite vessels designed for hydrogen or compressed natural gas (CNG) storage systems. Liner defects may result in the elimination of the whole vessel from use, which is very expensive, both at the manufacturing and exploitation stage. The goal is, therefore, the development of efficient non‐destructive testing (NDT) methods to test a liner immediately after its manufacturing, before applying a composite reinforcement. It should be noted that the current regulations, codes and standards (RC&S) do not specify liner testing methods after manufacturing. It was considered especially important to find a way of locating and assessing the size of air bubbles and inclusions, and the field of deformations in liner walls. It was also expected that these methods would be easily applicable to mass‐produced liners. The paper proposes the use of three optical methods, namely, visual inspection, digital image correlation (DIC), and optical fiber sensing based on Bragg gratings (FBG). Deformation measurements are validated with finite element analysis (FEA). The tested object was a prototype of a hydrogen liner for high‐pressure storage (700 bar). The mentioned optical methods were used to iden-tify defects and measure deformations.

KW - non‐destructive evaluation

KW - PE liner

KW - high-pressure vessel

KW - hydrogen storage

KW - optical fiber sensors

KW - Digital image correlation

UR - https://doi.org/10.3390/app11125667

U2 - 10.3390/app11125667

DO - 10.3390/app11125667

M3 - Article

VL - 11.2021

JO - Applied Sciences : open access journal

JF - Applied Sciences : open access journal

SN - 2076-3417

IS - 12

M1 - 5667

ER -