Geometric validation of a tape scale meshing tool for hydrogen tank modeling

A novel mesh generation tool is used to generate a mesh of a wound composite shell with conformal interfaces between overlapping tapes. Manufacturing defects and tapes dimensions are extracted from a tomography of the top of the dome. The meshing algorithm relies on a two-step strategy. First, a front representing the tape width is projected on a grid of the laying surface following the robot laying trajectories to obtain the localizations of the overlaps and the winding order. Then, a mesh of hexaedral elements is generated taking into account the height transitions at the tape overlaps. The original geometric approach is combined with physics-based heuristic methods to represent precisely the profile observed on the actual shells. The generated geometry is compared to multiple shells with different levels of complexity, at different scales. • The tool can generate a conformal mesh of any orientation of overlapping tapes. • The generation of nodes from a grid simplifies the detection of interpenetrations. • The manufacturing process is modeled with simple geometric hypotheses. • The multiscale geometric validation ensures the fidelity of defects representation. • Cohesive elements can be inserted between tapes thanks to the conformal mesh.