A realistic wear test was developed for porous thermal insulation systems exposed to high temperature turbulent gas flow, because it is essential for the development of existing and new concepts of such insulation and therefore also for the performance of processes that depend on such insulation. Wear is crucial and often dominant for the long-term performance of thermal insulation and, because of the complex nature of insulation wear under exposure of high-temperature turbulent flow, realistic testing capability is a necessary tool for improvement. A test rig was developed to subject fibrous ceramic insulation, the most encountered type of thermal insulation, to conditions representative for in-service use and to enable investigation of the occurring phenomena and behaviour. This rig can accommodate a range of different insulation configurations and is compatible with many turbulent flow sources. This test rig, its components, the experimental procedure, its accuracy and representative results are presented.

This study focuses on the understanding of the thermal and structural behavior of an innovative Type IV multi-spherical composite-overwrapped pressure vessel through an experimental assessment that consists of hydrostatic testing at ambient conditions and pressure cycling with a cryogenic medium (LN₂). During hydro-burst testing at a high displacement rate, the strain and damage progression is monitored with Digital-Image-Correlation (DIC) and Acoustic Emission (AE) techniques respectively. The effect of filling with LN₂, pressure cycling and draining on the composite overwrap temperature gradient and strain evolution is additionally obtained with Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBGs) and thermocouples. Utilization of AE helped to reveal the different damage mechanisms occurring and enabled the evaluation of the pressure window of the multi-sphere. The experimental measurements in the cryogenic regime verified the suitability of the involved stiffness and coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) fitting functions developed in [32] that enable to establish of a relationship between strain and temperature during cryogenic chill-down and pressure cycling. This study provides a framework about the suitability of conformal Type IV multi-spherical COPVs for cryogenic storage.

The simulation of long life behavior and environmental aging effects on composite materials are subjects of investigation for future aerospace applications (i.e. supersonic commercial aircrafts). Temperature variation in addition to matrix oxidation involves material degradation and loss of mechanical properties. Crack initiation and growth is the main damage mechanism. In this paper, an extended finite element analysis is proposed to simulate damage on carbon fiber reinforced polymer as a consequence of thermal fatigue between −50℃ and 150℃ under atmospheres with different oxygen content. The interphase effect on the degradation process is analyzed at a microscale level. Finally, results are correlated with the experimental data in terms of material stiffness and, hence, the most suitable model parameters are selected.