A New Thermal Insulation System for Vaccine Distribution

Abstract

This paper describes the potential application of a new passive cool ing system for distribution of biological and medical products at a secure temperature for long periods of time. Instead of the existing methods for protection of biological products against unsuitable conditions, a passive cooled container in conjunction with multilayer insulation (MLI) systems is proposed. The super-insulated container developed here, provides an efficient utilization of the latent heat resulting from solid fusion to absorb the major part of the heat leak through the system. The impetus for the present study is, first to investigate the thermal performance of the MLI systems as a function of hot boundary temperature, residual gas pressure, emissivity of the radiation shield and layer density, and secondly, to predict the secure transportation for the transported products under expected internal and external conditions from the standpoint of numerical heat transfer augmentation. The simulated model shows that the super-insulated container can provide several months of storing at a constant temperature, proper for the transported products. The finite element method is employed as the principle computational tool for the heat transfer analysis of the model.