An experimental programme is presented for estimating cool-down time for foam

insulated cryogenic transfer lines. The results show that there is good agreement
between theoretical and experimental cool-down curves. The integral method is
shown to be an accurate way to determine the position of cooling front as the
cool-down proceeds. It was also found that the mass flow rate does not significantly
affect the cool-down o f short transfer lines.

Cool-down of foam insulated cryogenic transfer lines

K. A. Durga Prasad, K. Srinivasan, and M. V. Krishna Murthy

Although many analytical and experimental investigations

have been carried-out on uninsulated and vacuum-insulated
transfer lines 1,2,3,4,s hardly any work has been reported on
cool-down of externally insulated lines. Rigid foam insulations are becoming more popular for liquid nitrogen and
liquid oxygen applications, in view of their low cost, compared to vacuum insulated lines, the considerable reduction
of evaporation losses, and their manipulability to any desired
shape. A recent analysis by Srinivasan et al 6 showed that
the integral method can be conveniently used to estimate the
minimum insulation thickness taking into account cooldown considerations. The present investigation proves that
there is fair agreement between the analytical results obtained by Srinivasan et al and experimental results. Furthermore it is shown that the mass flow rate does not influence
the cool-down very significantly.

Experimental apparatus and procedure

The experiments were conducted on a copper tube of 13 mm
outer diameter and 10.6 mm inner diameter. Polystyrene
foam (commercially known as Thermocole) is used to insulate
the line over a 1000 mm length. The density of foam used was
20 kg m -3 The outer diameter of the insulation was 120 mm
which is slightly more than the minimum predicted in
reference 6. The moisture barrier was produced by coating
the insulation outer surface with a thin film of bitumen. The
insulation, consists of two halves of a hollow cylinder, bonded
on to the pipe wall using a glue. The test set-up is shown in
Fig. 1. Thirty gauge copper constantau themocouples (Leeds
and Northrop) were used for all temperature measurements,
with liquid nitrogen used as a reference junction. The
thermocouples were located at various radial positions to
measure thermal layer penetration. The radial positions of
the thermocouples are shown in Fig.2. The up-stream aa~d
down-stream pipe wall temperatures were recorded on a
Siemens Kompensograph III (2 channel line recorder) and
thermal layer position was measured by recording temperatures at different radial locations on a Hartman & Braun
12 channel point recorder.
The authors are with the Refrigeration and Airconditioning
Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian
Institute of Technology, Madras 600036, India. Received
14 August 1974.

C R Y O G E N I C S . N O V E M B E R 1974

Thermocouple

Thermoeouple

,3 \

,4

Insulation

IT Transfersystem

II

I I Pressure gauge

d--h

II

_P ess0 e regu,at,ng

II

v'v"

Mercury II
manometer

Copper tube

II

II

L2
II
....

/!i\

Receii~ver k.j i
I

i i

- Spring balance ~

IU

cylinder

r_--)

Liquid nitrogen dewar

Fig.1

Test section

The liquid transfer system comprises a 15 litre metal dewar

connected to the test section through a transfer siphon.
The ullage volume of the dewar is pressurized using dry
nitrogen gas from a high pressure cylinder. The flow of
the pressurant is controlled by a pressure regulator, and
the supply dewar pressure is measured by a conventional
U-tube mercury manometer. The receiving dewar is mounted on weigh-bridge. Transfer of liquid nitrogen is achieved by opening the regulator on the high pressure cylinder. The recorders are switched on, ullage volume pressure
is brought to a desired value, and maintained at that value
for a particular run. The cool-down is assumed to be
complete when the down-stream end of the test section
has reached a steady temperature approximately equal to
liquid nitrogen temperature. At this stage the rate at which
liquid nitrogen is collected in the receiving dewar is measured.
This facilitates estimation of mass flow rate through the test
section.

615

tical zero mass flow rate cool-down curve and the points
on the experimental curve for different supply dewar
pressures are plotted on Fig.3. It can be seen that the
analytical zero mass flow rate curve very reasonably
approximates the experimental cool-down curve for all
mass flow rates. This fact proves that the supply dewar
pressure, which in turn is proportional to the mass flow
rate, does not influence the cool-down rate. The theoretical
cool-down curve is obtained using the pool boiling correlations only for calculating the heat flux to the fluid. This
suggests that the contribution of forced convection to heat
flux inside the tube is negligibly small for short transfer
sections. This result is in confirmation with the results
obtained by Steward et al 7 and Sfinivasan et al.a

Results and discussion

The experimental data includes the time-temperature

history of the down-stream end of the test section and the
temperature recordings of the thermocouples located at
different radial positions shown in Fig.2. Fig.3 shows the
time-temperature history of the test section. The analy-

A typical temperature recording of a thennocouple located

at a radius of 44 mm is shown in Fig.4. Similar curves
were obtained for other radii shown in Fig.2.

Fig.2

The analytically estimated and experimentally determined

relation between thermal layer position and time is plotted
in Fig.5. There is a very close agreement between analytical
and experimental results. However, the analysis predicts a
slightly pessimistic rate of penetration of the thermal
layer. The reasons may be that the values used in the
theoretical analysis may not be exactly the same as the
properties of the insulation used in the experiments. The
other probable cause may be that the thermocouple is
measuring the temperature in the foam cell. Thus, delay
might have been induced in the measurement of exact
temperature due to low conductivity of the blowing gas
in the cell.

Radial positions of thermocouples

320
Analytical curve

Experimental points

28C

240

20O
v

160

I-

120

80

40

o
Fig.3

616

I0

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

I00

I10

Cool-down curve for polystyrene

foam

insulated transfer line

Time, s

CRYOGENICS. NOVEMBER 1974

310,

Experimental points
Supply dewar
Symbol
pressure, cm Hg
0

I00
v 300

90

2
E

Supply dewar
pressure, cm H9

Symbol

I=

280

13.0

"

II.2

13.0

"
o

11.2
15.0

I- 50

7.0

10.2
12.0

4O

120

;/

7.0
10.2
12.0

70

60

IQO
II.O

T h e o r e t i c a l curve

80

10.(3
I1.0

~- 2 9 0

60

180

240

300

360

30

420

20

Time, s

IO
Fig.4

Variation of temperature with time at a radius of 4.4 cm

Radius, cm

During the experimental investigation it was observed

that the foam produces a crashing noise towards the end
of cool-down. This can be attributed to high thermal contraction of the foain, which is prevented by the metal tube
of lower thermal contraction coefficient. This fact suggests
that it is advisable to provide a sufficient gap between the
pipe and the insulation, so that at the end of cool-down the
insulation just holds tim pipe tight. If differential contraction is not provided the insulation may get degraded due
to destruction of cell structure. 9

Fig.5

Thermal layer position as a function of time

to the outer surface of insulation even at the end of cooldown, the insulation thickness used in the experiments is
slightly more than the mininmm predicted by the analysis.
Thus, the value predicted by the analysis for the insulation
thickness is pessimistic.
References

Conclusions

An experimenral investigation was carried out to establish

the validity of earlier ana_lytical results on cool-down of
foam insulated cryogenic transfer lines. There is good
agreement between the analytically estimated and experimentally determined cool-down rates of the test section.
The integral method used in the analysis gives sufficiently
accurate results. The thernral layer position in the insulation
during cool-down can be predicted with reasonable accuracy
using the integral method. It was further shown that the
transfer line cool-down in the case of short transfer sections is
independent of supply dewar pressure or mass flow rate.
If small gaps are provided between insulation and pipe wall
degradation of insulation due to differential contraction
may be avoided. Since the thermal layer has not penetrated

CRYOGENICS.

NOVEMBER

1974

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Cryogenic Engineering, Vol 4 (1960) 378
2 Drake, E. M., Ruccia, F. E., Ruder, J. M. Advances in Cryogenic
Engineering, Vol 6 (1961) 323
3 Bronson, J. C. et al Advances in Cryogenic Engineering, Wol 7
(1961) 198
4 Chi, J. W. H. Advances in Cryogenic I'nginecring, Vol 10 (1965)
330
5 Leonhard, K. E., Getty, R. C., Franks, D. E. ~dvances in
Cryogenic Engineering, Vol 12 ( 19671 331
6 Srinivasan, K., Seshagiri Rao, V., Krishna Muithy, M. V. Paper
S-5. ICEC5 (Kyoto, 1974)
7 Stewards, W. G., Smith, R. V., Brennan, J. A. Advances in
Cryogenic Engineering, Vol 15 (1970) 354
8 Srinivasan, K., Seshagiri Rao, V., Krishna Murthy, M. V.
Cryogenics 14 (1974) 489
9 Durgaprasad, K. A. M Tech Dissertation, Indian Institute o f
Technology, Madras (1974)

617