Influence of fire intensity, fire impingement area and internal pressure on the fire resistance of composite pressure vessels for the storage of hydrogen in automobile applications

The structural integrity of fully wrapped type IV hydrogen tanks is sensitive to fire. Fire damage may result in a structural failure if no pressure relief occurs. To contribute to a better understanding of the tank behavior, influencing factors on the fire resistance have to be identified. Influence of fire temperature, size of the fire impingement area and initial hydrogen pressure on fire resistance is investigated and reported quantitatively. The main result of the bonfire tests with 7.5 L tanks is that the higher the tank surface temperature, the larger the fire impingement area and the higher the initial hydrogen pressure, the shorter the fire resistance time will be.