In accordance to the insufficient rationality of the current engineering design method of composite explosion containment vessels, an equivalent design method for the design of metal-lined composite explosion containment vessels was proposed based on the idea of lightweight, combined with the dynamic coefficient method and grid theory. The initial design of the composite cylinder with an inner diameter of 0.5 m and an anti-explosion equivalent of 1 kg TNT was completed by this method. The surface density of the composite cylinder was reduced from 19.3 g / cm2 of the equivalent metal cylinder to 3.6 g / cm2. Further, the explosive loading experiment was carried out inside the cylinder, the results showed that the design of the cylinder was reasonable, while the design method is effective. The method provides a new idea for the lightweight design of composite explosion containment vessels.