Novel Composite Pressure Vessel Structures With High Heat Transfer and Fire Resistance Properties

The conversion of metal components on high performance vehicles to polymer reinforced composites allows significant weight savings over metal structures. Current battery bottles for deep submersible vehicles have been designed from titanium, which is expensive to produce and has low (relative to metals) thermal conductivity. Luna Innovations Incorporated’s experience in developing both fire retardant and thermally conductive composites will allow design of a reduced weight aluminum-lined carbon/epoxy composite replacement for the titanium bottle. Luna will formulate a fire retardant resin system with dispersed additives including carbon/metallic fibers to increase the thermal conductance of carbon composite material to levels equivalent to titanium. Additives will be aligned using low strength magnetic fields perpendicular to the primary reinforcing fiber direction during cure to further improve through-thickness conductance while maintaining a viscosity compatible with filament winding. Weight savings of 25%-50% compared to titanium bottles are anticipated. High fidelity modeling will ensure that the composite design maintains at least the same level of strength and resistance for the unique loading profiles of deep submersible vehicles such as the ASDS.