Weight Minimization of Type 2 Composite Pressure Vessel for Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles Considering Mechanical Safety with Kriging Metamodel

In recent years, increased sales of fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) have required composite overwrapped pressure vessel (COPV) designs to be lightweight and allow safe high-pressure hydrogen storage. In this study, we propose the weight minimization of Type 2 COPVs for FCEVs considering mechanical safety. Steel liner thickness, ply thickness, ply orientation, and the number of plies were set as design variables, and weight minimization was performed. For the constraints of optimization, the Tsai–Wu failure index of the composite layer and von Mises stress of the steel liner are considered. The design of experiments (DoE) was conducted to generate kriging model and perform sensitivity analysis. The optimized design of Type 2 COPVs was determined by satisfying all constraints, with significant weight reduction and preserved mechanical safety of the structure.