A study on the actual heat leak of a cryogenic vessel during storage

Abstract

In the traditional method, as the loss product and gas are considered to be saturated, the heat leak of a cryogenic vessel is the latent heat of loss product. However, the temperature of loss product and gas exceeds the saturated temperature as measured in tests. Therefore, a portion of the heat leak is absorbed by the loss product when it diffuses into the gas phase of a cryogenic vessel in the storage process. In this study, the energy equations of the gas and liquid are established in cryogenic vessels during storage to investigate the actual heat leak of a cryogenic vessel in a storage process by considering the temperature distribution of the gas. Then, an experiment was conducted to demonstrate that the actual heat leak of a cryogenic vessel contains not only the latent heat but also the enthalpy change of the loss product, which is produced as it diffused into the gas phase. The results showed that the enthalpy change increased as the liquid level decreased and was critical for determining the actual heat leak in cryogenic vessels in the storage process, with a ratio of approximately 12% to the latent heat when the liquid level ratio is 85%.