Characterization of a filament wound thin-ply composite for a cryogenic tank for liquid hydrogen

Abstract

This paper reviews efforts to characterise the properties of a thin ply composite material for wet winding, for a linerless tank for storage of liquid hydrogen. The tank is manufactured and tested within the Swedish project “LH2-Tanks” and consists of a cylindrical composite section manufactured by filament winding and two hemispherical end caps in titanium. The current work is based on our participation in a previous European project on cryogenic composite tanks for a reusable space launcher and previous studies of thin-ply composite materials.