Manufacture, Modeling, and Testing of Wire-Reinforced Metallic Pressure Vessel Prototypes

This article describes the manufacture, testing, and finite element modeling of prototype pressure vessels made of steel and reinforced with high-strength steel wire in the cylindrical part. Vessel prototypes were manufactured with pipe fittings and either no wire reinforcement, one layer of wire reinforcement, or two layers of wire reinforcement, with the purpose of developing an improved understanding of the effect of the wire reinforcement, and the number of reinforcement layers on prototype pressure strength. Pressure tests were conducted for instrumented vessels to determine strength up to 70 bar with a test system equipped with pressure and velocity regulators to guarantee the stability of the supplied flow and improve measurement accuracy and repeatability. Finite element modeling is conducted with the commercial code ANSYS and equivalent orthotropic properties obtained with the unit cell method, assuming a high value for the volume fraction of steel wire, and a matrix with low elastic properties compared with those of the steel wire. The results show that there is an interaction between the cylindrical part and the reinforcing wire, and that this relation is affected by external factors resulting from manufacturing process and material properties. Strain reduction in prototypes with thicker reinforcement is an indicator of the improvement on pressure resistance.