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Air cargo containers are used to load freight on various types of aircrafts to expedite their handling. Fuel cost is the largest contributor to the total cost of ownership of an air cargo container. Therefore, a better fuel economy could be achieved by reducing the weight of such containers. This paper aims at developing innovative, lightweight design concepts for air cargo containers that would allow for weight reduction in the air cargo transportation industry. For this purpose, innovative design and assembly concepts of lightweight design configurations of air cargo containers have been developed through the applications of lightweight composites. A scaled model prototype of a typical air cargo container was built to assess the technical feasibility and economic viability of creating such a container from fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composite materials. The paper is the authoritative source for the abstract.

This paper presents 3D finite element analysis performed for a composite cylindrical tank made of 6061-aluminum liner overwrapped with carbon fibers subjected to a burst internal pressure of 1610 bars. As the service pressure expected in these tanks is 700 bars, a factor of safety of 2.3 is kept the same for all designs. The optimal design configuration of such high pressure storage tanks includes an inner liner used as a gas permeation barrier, geometrically optimized domes, inlet/outlet valves with minimum stress concentrations, and directionally tailored exterior reinforcement for high strength and stiffness. Filament winding of pressure vessels made of fiber composite materials is the most efficient manufacturing method for such high pressure hydrogen storage tanks. The complexity of the filament winding process in the dome region is characterized by continually changing the fiber orientation angle and the local thickness of the wall.