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SAE TECHNICAL
PAPER SERIES 2001-01-0972

Manufacturing of Bladder Fuel Tank for Vapor

Reducing Fuel Tank System
Tatsutoshi Takashima, Teijiro Goto, Hisamitsu Kato and Junichi Sugimoto
HORIE METAL Co.,Ltd.

SAE 2001 World Congress

Detroit, Michigan
March 5-8, 2001

400 Commonwealth Drive, Warrendale, PA 15096-0001 U.S.A. Tel: (724) 776-4841 Fax: (724) 776-5760
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2001-01-0972

Manufacturing of Bladder Fuel Tank for Vapor

Reducing Fuel Tank System
Tatsutoshi Takashima, Teijiro Goto, Hisamitsu Kato and Junichi Sugimoto
Horie Metal Co.,Ltd.

Copyright © 2001 Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc.

ABSTRACT
Air Cleaner
Surge Tank
To reduce the amount of fuel vapor created in the fuel
Electrical Control Unit
tank, we developed a variable-capacity, plastic bladder Refueling Fuel
Air Inlet Line Purge Line
fuel tank that is efficient, reliable, and provides Charcoal Canister
EVAP. Line
permeation prevention performance. Mechanical Seal Circulate Line
Filler Pipe Detect Line of Vapor Line
This bladder fuel tank changes in shape and total Membrane Hole

capacity in accordance with the volume of fuel it holds. Evaporation Port

Filler Hose Fuel
Thus, in contrast to the conventional fuel tank, it can Bladder Fuel Tank gauge
Space Layer
dramatically reduce the amount of fuel vapor that is Mounting Rubber Check Valve Outer Tank Fuel Supply Port Sub-Tank
ordinarily created in the fuel tank while the vehicle is
being refueled, parked, or driven.
The bladder fuel tank has been adopted in the Vapor Fig. 1: Vapor Reducing Fuel Tank System
Reducing Fuel Tank System of the North American
model Prius, a vehicle that operates under the Toyota
Hybrid System (THS), which complies with the SULEV
exhaust emission requirement.
This paper primarily gives an outline of the technology
for manufacturing the bladder fuel tank.

INTRODUCTION
Due to the concerns regarding air pollution problems in
the metropolitan areas in recent years, automobile
exhaust emission regulations are being strengthened in
the United States, Europe, and Japan. In 1997, the
Prius, the world's first mass-produced hybrid passenger
car was introduced by Toyota Motor Corporation into the
Japanese market. This was followed by the introduction
of the Prius into the North American market in 2000. In
its introduction into the North American market, the Prius
was equipped with the Vapor Reducing Fuel Tank
System (Fig. 1). This enabled the vehicle to comply with
the California SULEV regulation, the most stringent
exhaust emission regulation, making the Prius one of the
cleanest mass-produced vehicles in the world.
1)
The Vapor Reducing Fuel Tank System of the Prius
has been equipped with the plastic bladder fuel tank that
we mass-produced for the first time in the world. As a
major safety part, our plastic bladder fuel tank provides a
high level of reliability that is equal to the conventional
fuel tank, while performing the function of a bladder fuel
tank.
MAIN SECTION
1. Bladder Fuel Tank's Required Performance,
Shape, and Molding Process
1-1. Bladder Fuel Tank's Required Performance
The Vapor Reducing Fuel Tank System requires the
following four performances of the bladder fuel tank:
1) Expansibility and contractility
2) Operation stability
3) Durable reliability
4) Fuel permeation prevention
The Vapor Reducing Fuel Tank System must drastically
reduce the fuel vapor volume in the bladder fuel tank
from that of the conventional fuel tank in order to reduce
the fuel vapor generated in the fuel tank. For this reason,
the bladder fuel tank is required to provide the function of
varying its capacity by expanding and contracting with
the liquid pressure of the fuel.
As with the conventional fuel tank, the bladder fuel
tank must also provide the refueling and fuel supplying
functions. For this reason, the bladder fuel tank must
provide operation stability and durable reliability.
Furthermore, it must provide fuel permeation prevention.
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once, it offers lesser freedom to control the thickness.
1-2. Study of Bladder fuel tank Shape and Molding The inflation molding or the vacuum molding process
Process offers greater freedom to control the thickness; however,
they pose a problem in terms of the reliability of the area
Table 1-1 shows a molding process that provides a that is joined to form the bag shape (Fig. 1-1).
bladder fuel tank shape that is believed to be As described thus far, there are advantages and
representative of the Vapor Reducing Fuel Tank System disadvantages depending on the shape and the process
that was devised in the past. for molding the bladder fuel tank. Therefore, the shape
In Type 1, fuel is placed inside a flexible, bag-shaped and the process must be optimized area in the
that is development
joined
bladder fuel tank; or, fuel is placed inside a hard of the bladder fuel tank.
container and air is placed inside a flexible, bag-shaped
bladder fuel tank. This type can ensure the proper fluid-
tightness or air-tightness provided that the bladder fuel
tank operates in a stable manner. On the other hand, if
there are any parts that are attached to the bladder fuel
tank, the reliability of the attachment becomes an issue.
Type 2 consists of a hard container in which fuel is
placed and a flexible sheet is moved. Although this type
provides reliability because fuel is placed inside a hard
container, it cannot ensure the proper fluid-tightness.
As shown in Table 1-1, there is an optimal process for
forming a bladder fuel tank for the respective type. The
optimal process for creating a bag-shaped bladder fuel Fig. 1-1 The area that is joined to form the bag shape
tank for Type 1 is believed to be the blow-molding or the
inflation molding. Although the blow-molding process
enables a bag-shaped bladder fuel tank to be formed at

Table 1-1: Representative bladder fuel tank shapes and possible molding processes
Representative bladder Bladder fuel tank shape Molding process Advantage/Disadvantage
fuel tank system concept
Type 1 Blow-molding Forms a bag-shaped
Gas-assist molding bladder fuel tank at once
but offers lesser freedom
to control its thickness.

Inflation molding Offers greater freedom to

control its thickness but
requires some areas to be
joined in order to form the
bag shape; also, it offers
lesser freedom of shape.

Vacuum molding Offers greater freedom to

T-die molding control its thickness but
requires some areas to be
joined in order to form the
bag shape.

Type 2 Vacuum molding Offers reliability because it

T-die molding is attached to the
conventional tank;
however, it requires some
areas to be joined in order
to form the bag shape.
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2. Bladder fuel tank Composition

2-1. Bladder fuel tank Molding Process, Shape, and

Material

In the development of the bladder fuel tank, we

considered the following three elements to bring the
bladder fuel tank's ability into full play:

1) Molding process
2) Shape
3) Material

Therefore, we optimized these elements in the following

manner:
We considered that the shape that maximizes the
performance of the bladder fuel tank is the bag shape.
Therefore, we adopted a blow-molding process that
creates a bag in a single process, and which minimizes
joined areas. To facilitate thickness control, we selected
a symmetric shape. We selected a material that offers
flexibility and enables blow-forming. As Fig. 2-1 shows, Fig. 2-2: Bladder fuel tank shape
the layered composition of the bladder fuel tank contains
a barrier in the intermediate layer in order to provide fuel
permeation prevention performance. In addition, a
recyclable layer has been provided to enable recycling
4)
within the process.

Polyethylene
Adhesive Layer
Recyclable Layer
Barrier Layer

Polyethylene Adhesive Layer

Fig. 2-1: Layered bladder fuel tank composition

Fig. 2-3: Inward flexing of the bladder fuel tank wall

2-2. Bladder fuel tank Shape and Operation

Fig. 2-2 shows the shape of the bladder fuel tank. This
shape easily flexes the side wall of the bladder fuel tank
inward as shown in Fig. 2-3, and its top and bottom
surfaces move to expand and contract the capacity of
the bladder fuel tank. Furthermore, the top and bottom
surfaces of the bladder fuel tank have been designed
with a bellows shape to improve the expansibility and
4)
contractibility.
The center of the top and bottom surfaces of the
bladder fuel tank varies in height in accordance with the
volume of the fuel as shown in Figs. 2-4 and 2-5. Its
maximum and minimum heights are 200mm and 60mm,
4)
respectively. Through this height variance, the amount
of fuel vapor generated in the bladder fuel tank has
decreased dramatically over the existing fuel tank.

Fig. 2-4: Full bladder fuel tank fuel tank

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To satisfy August 19, 2018
above
requirements, the fuel supply port
and the evaporation port have adopted the installation
construction shown in Fig. 3-3, through the following
processes:

Process 1: Insert blow-molding process

The injection-molded part is inserted into a metal mold
during blow-molding in order to heat-weld it to the
bladder fuel tank.

Process 2: Heat-plate welding process

After blow-molding, the fuel supply port or the
evaporation port is heat-plate welded to the injection-
molded part.

By forming the injection-molded part into a conical

Fig. 2-5: Bladder fuel tank with low fuel level shape, the reliability of the heat welding in the blow insert
process has been improved, without hindering the
expansibility and the contractibility of the bladder fuel
3. Mass-Production of Bladder Fuel Tank tank.
3-1. Blow-molding

We adopted the blow-molding process for

manufacturing the bladder fuel tank. While a thin bladder fuel inlet pipe evaporation port
fuel tank is advantageous in terms of expansibility and
contractibility, a bladder fuel tank that is too thin would
be disadvantageous in terms of operation stability and
durable reliability. Therefore, its thickness must be
precisely controlled during blow-molding.
By adopting the symmetric shape for the bladder fuel
tank, its thickness variance has been reduced to 2/5 of
the conventional plastic fuel tank produced through the
blow-molding process. It has enabled precision thickness
control to ensure expansibility, contractibility, operation
stability, and durable reliability. Fig. 3-1 shows the
thickness variances of the bladder fuel tank and the
conventional plastic fuel tank produced through the blow-
molding process. fuel supply port on back side

Fig. 3-2: Parts on the bladder fuel tank

evaporation port

injection-molded part
bladder fuel tank

Fig. 3-1 The thickness variances of the bladder fuel tank

and the conventional plastic fuel tank

3-2. Parts Installation
A fuel inlet pipe, fuel supply port, and an evaporation
port are installed on the bladder fuel tank as shown in fig.
3-2. These parts must meet the following three
requirements for installation.
1) Ability to be installed on a thin and soft material
2) Does not hinder the expansibility and contractibility of
the bladder fuel tank
3) Offers durable reliability
Fig. 3-3: Installation construction of the bladder fuel tank
and parts
4. Performance Control of the Bladder Fuel Tank
In addition to the quality control process for the
conventional plastic fuel tank, only a few survey
characteristics has enable to control the required
performance in the mass production of the bladder fuel
tank.
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CONCLUSION

The bladder fuel tank satisfies the required

performance levels of expansibility, contractibility,
operation stability, durable reliability, and fuel permeation
prevention performance through our production
technology of plastic and steel fuel tanks. As a result, a
high level of reliability that is equal to the conventional
fuel tank has been achieved.

1)A blow-molding process that can precisely control

the thickness has been established.
2)A technique for installing the parts that are
necessary for the bladder fuel tank has been
established.
3)A method for controlling the required performance
level of the bladder fuel tank during mass production
has been established.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to express our gratitude to Messrs.

Toyota Motor Corporation, Japan Polychem Corporation,
Ube Industries, Ltd., Mitsubishi Chemical Co. Ltd., as
well as the concerned parties within our company for
their cooperation in the development of the technology
for manufacturing the bladder fuel tank.

REFERENCES

1)Toshio Inoue, Hirose, Sakurai, Ishikawa: Challenges

to the Cleanest Car; Automobile Technical Institute,
Academic Lecture Pre-Release Series No. 19-00
2)Asanosuke Chisaka: Illustrated Manual of Practical
Injection Molding, Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun, Ltd.
3)Nissei Plastic Injection Research Workshop:
Injection Molding Know-How, Japan Machinist, Co.
Ltd.
4)Koichiro Hayashi, Mikami, Miura: Development of
Multiple-Layer Membrane for Variable Capacity Fuel
Tank, Toyota Engineering Society.

CONTACT

Tatsutoshi Takashima
PFT DEPT. Research & Development DIV.
HORIE METAL Co.,Ltd.
2-26 KONOSU-CHO , TOYOTA , AICHI
, 471-0854 JAPAN
http.//www.asnohorie.co.jp
E-mail ttakashima1@asnohorie.co.jp
TEL 0565-29-2211
FAX 0565-29-4438