THOR aims at developing a cost-effective thermoplastic composite pressure vessel for hydrogen storage both for
vehicle and for transportation applications. Thermoplastics appear as a promising solution to the challenges faced by
conventional tanks in terms of compatibility with hydrogen service and with mass automotive market requirements.
The use of thermoplastic materials, advanced numerical modeling techniques and innovative manufacturing
processes will boost the performance, improve safety, enable optimized tank geometry and weight (reduction
of 10%) and reduce the cost for mass production (400€/kg of H2 stored for 30 000 tanks/year). A series of tests
extracted from demanding automotive standards will validate all the requirements and demonstrate that thermoplastic
tanks outperform thermoset ones. The consortium is representative of the hydrogen supply chain, from technology
developer to manufacturer and end-user enhancing market uptake: a disruptive technology provider with successful
commercial experience of thermoplastic tanks (COVESS), an ambitious Tier One supplier targeting a wide market
introduction towards all OEMs (FAURECIA), an industrial gas expert with a long history related to hydrogen and
a complementary end-user of tanks for hydrogen supply and refueling station operations (AIR LIQUIDE). This
core industrial team is limited in purpose to avoid possible future commercial conflicts of interests and backed up
with top research expertise to address all the identified challenges: an innovation center for material research with
important tank scale testing capacity (CSM), a technology center in the fields of composite materials, manufacturing,
automation, and testing (SIRRIS), academic teams with strong experience of composite materials and non-destructive
testing (NTNU) and of thermo-mechanical materials behavior under fire aggression (CNRS) and a technical center
with an innovative recycling technology for thermoplastic composites (CETIM-CERMAT).
