Measurement of Aluminum Liner Internal Defect Deformation and Strain Using Shearography and FEM Verification

Today, environmental issues have become a matter of worldwide concern. In particular, automobile industries engage in considerable research and investment to develop high-efficiency and ecofriendly cars. Most ecofriendly cars use natural gas or hydrogen gas instead of fossil fuels. In this regard, low-weight and high-pressure vessels have gradually been developed to increase the driving distance of a car. However, most pressure vessels installed in cars develop many defects over time owing to shocks sustained when the car is being driven. Such defects can cause the explosion of the pressure vessel. Therefore it is important to prevent such explosions due to internal defects. The use of shearography for measuring the internal defects of objects afford many advantages. It is a non-contact and non-destructive method, and it is not limited by the object shape. In this study, the internal defect deformation and strain of an aluminum liner that is used in a CNG bus for the fuel storage tank is measured using shearography. It is important to measure the strain and deformation in order to detect defects and repair the pressure vessel. To verify the accuracy of the shearography measurement method, the measurement results of shearography, out-of-plane ESPI, and FEM are compared quantitatively.