BRYSON

Conformable hydrogen vessels for optimised usability in vehicle architectures

Image of two horizontal long, black rods and a thread — Manufactured thermoplastic high-pressure hydrogen vessels with screwable bosses that allow continuous production using the tape-braiding process.

In the Bryson project, conformable hydrogen storages for vehicles were developed in order to realise battery and fuel cell vehicles in one vehicle platform. The ILK hereby pursued a multi-cell design which can use complex installation spaces very efficient. In order to limit the production effort involved in manufacturing the large number of individual pressure vessels, the efficient process chain of thermoplastic tape braiding, developed by ILK, has been developed further for continuously manufacturing of hydrogen pressure storage units with an operating pressure of 700 bar.
Together with LZS GmbH and herone GmbH, adapted construction concepts were devel-oped for the braiding process and the individual tank cells were designed for burst pres-sures of 1700 bar. Besides manufacturing studies and material tests, the performance of large thermoplastic screw connections was demonstrated which even allow for screwable boss concepts for the developed pressure vessels.
Due to the disadvantageous surface to storage volume ratio of multi-cell pressure vessels, the permeation of hydrogen through the liner and the fibre composite is often critical. To investigate this, a high-pressure permeation test rig for polymers, fibre composites and multi-layer structures was developed and set up as part of the project. This made it pos-sible to identify suitable polymerbased liners that show 50 times lower permeability than the polymers currently in use.

Layout of the InEco vehicle — InEco vehicle concept with conformable hydrogen storages, which use the same installation space as the battery and thus offer a storage-independent vehicle platform.

Period

01.12.2019–31.12.2023

Project partners

Funding

Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK): 7th Energy Research Programme "Innovations for the Energy Transition"
Funding code: 03ETB019D