Evacuation time of cryogenic pipes for superconducting power transmission

The vacuum insulation has been used for the thermal insulation of cryogenic pipes for the superconducting power transmission to reduce the heat leak from the environment at the room temperature to the low temperature parts. Since the cryogenic pipes, in particular, those for long distance power transmission, are considered to be thin long pipes, it might take a long time for evacuation. To estimate the evacuation time of the long cryogenic pipes, model calculations have been performed. According to the calculations, it is found that there is an optimum condition between the pumping speed, the diameter of the outer pipe and the length of the cryogenic pipe for efficient evacuation. It is also found that, if the outgassing is suppressed enough, the evacuation can be possible within 1 week even for the long cryogenic pipe with the length of 10 km. The reduction of outgassing is particularly important for the efficient evacuation. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.