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ME128 – Project 3: Parametric Design of a Conformal Hydrogen Storage Pressure Vessel

Purpose: To design and analyze a conformal (rectangular) pressure vessel for hydrogen hydride-based storage filled with aluminum foam.
Background: This is an actual aerospace project at a Bay Area aerospace materials company. The application requires a relatively small, flat-sided pressure vessel capable of handing 300 PSI. The vessel is to be filled with metal foam for its heat transfer properties, its structure for hydride powder distribution, and its strength (if bonded).
Method: The constraints for this project were fairly tight, with customer specifications and available materials being limiting factors. Two major designs were considered. The first utilized a section of square extruded aluminum tube with aluminum Duocel® foam bonded to the inside walls. The second design involved starting with a solid block of aluminum and boring a pattern of holes in it. For this design, the foam would be inserted, but not bonded to the housing. The latter design was determined to be more effective for reasons of stresses, required foam density, and void volume. The final design parameters were chosen based on the following procedure: initial designs were chosen based on constraints and engineering knowledge, initial FEM analyses were performed to determine specific behaviors and parameters were adjusted accordingly, when the best solution was obtained the FEA mesh was refined until result deviations were negligible.

I will unfortunately be unable to post the final report because it contained proprietary information about an in-progress project.