Abstract: For reliability design and safety evaluation on fiber wound reinforced plastics ( FWRP) pressure vessels ,the t raditional safety factor design was substituted by a reliability st ructure design based on the reliability theory andthe statistical principle. Eight glass fiber wound reinforced plastics ( GFWRP) pressure vessels were manufacturedand the experiment s were conducted to obtain the probabilistic dist ribution of design variables , such as the fiberst rength , winding angle , geomet ric size , burst st rength and so on. The result s ( thickness of the winding fiber)derived f rom the reliability design agree well with the experimental result s and much lower than that f rom thet raditional safety factor design. Through comparison between the reliability design result s with different statistics offiber st rength , the significant influence of the variance level of fiber st rength on reliability design of FWRP pressurevessel was demonst rated. The t raditional safety factor design was verified to be not reasonable since it considers onlythe mean value of fiber st rength without the effect of fiber st rength statistics on the st ructural resistance of thevessel . The reliability design of FWRP pressure vessel in this study present s the effective unity of safety andeconomy.