Computational design of vapor-cooled shield structure for liquid hydrogen storage tank

From the perspective of energy development, the low storage temperature of liquid hydrogen leads to intrusion heat flux and unavoidable evaporation losses during liquid hydrogen storage, limiting the development of hydrogen energy. Vapor-cooled shield (VCS) has been regarded as an outstanding thermal insulation solution for liquefied hydrogen storage. It uses the low-temperature hydrogen vapor evaporating from the tank to cool the insulation layer and reduce the storage tank’s intrusion heat flux. The present study conducts a three-dimensional computational design of the VCS structure for a liquid hydrogen storage tank and analyzes the influence of the design variables such as VCS tube diameter, the number of tubes, and effective thermal conductivity upon thermal insulation performance. Analysis results showed that compared to the model without VCS, as the VCS tube diameter and tube number increase, the heat transfer area increases, and the reduction in intrusive heat flow improves from a minimum of 31.64 % to a maximum of 66.55 %. In addition, the insulation layer’s thermal insulation performance is improved with the decrease of the multi-layer insulation thermal conductivity; however, the trend between the intrusion heat flux and the tube diameter and tube number remains unaffected.