Design of Hydrostatic Pressure Retainment Tanks for Fuel Cell Vehicles

There is a great deal of attention being concentrated on reducing the weight of pressure vessels and fuel/oxidizer tanks (tankage) by 10% to 20%. Most efforts are focused at the use of new lighter weight high strength materials to achieve this goal. We propose another approach called Hydrostatic Pressure Retainment^™ (HPR^™), which has the potential of reducing tank weights by nearly 40% while simultaneously increasing safety and versatility. HPR^™ is an original invention of the authors, and represents a truly novel approach to light weight tankage.