Stainless Steel in LPG Tanks Application

LPG is today an alternative and ecological fuel energy for automotive. Conventional LPG tanks show their limits and the development of new LPG tanks faces some difficulties: small and complicated shapes in the vehicles are available to store LPG tanks and the weight of conventional LPG tanks remains high. Based on a new LPG concept patented by Giat Industries, Ugine&ALZ proposed the usage of a high strength stainless steel. This new concept is based on internal reinforcing wells and on the use of high-strength stainless steel. Therefore the tank can have various shapes exactly adapted to the available space in the vehicle. As a consequence the space in the vehicle is optimised. Moreover using high-strength stainless steel enables to reduce the weight of the tank considerably. This article describes this new LPG tank concept and its main advantages: LPG storage capacity, lightness, burst pressure resistance, crash resistance…