Abstract
For the future use of liquefied hydrogen (LH2) as a green energy carrier, new concepts for storage tanks and in particular their insulation are necessary. The methodology applied in current LH2 tanks has some disadvantages while manufacturing and operation of large tanks that may be required in the future. While liquefied natural gas tanks exist in the necessary capacities, they are incompatible with LH2 due to its significantly lower storage temperature. In this paper, the possibility of using vacuum insulation panels (VIPs) as an alternative to the conventional double walled, powder filled vacuum insulation is presented. The two systems are introduced and compared on a conceptual level with a focus on the loss of vacuum failure mode. Furthermore, a test rig that enables the testing and quantification of thermal properties of VIP based insulations in ordinary and loss of vacuum conditions is presented. The test rig is a boil-off calorimeter using liquefied nitrogen and features a square cold surface with a side length of 3 m. An overview over the planned testing and its goals is given.
