Vacuum-insulated double-wall piping systems are commonly used for the transportation of liquefied hydrogen due to their thermal insulation characteristics. However, structural supports penetrating the vacuum layer act as heat transfer paths and contri...
Vacuum-insulated double-wall piping systems are commonly used for the transportation of liquefied hydrogen due to their thermal insulation characteristics. However, structural supports penetrating the vacuum layer act as heat transfer paths and contribute to heat leakage into the cryogenic fluid. In addition, the thermal behavior of the system is influenced by flow conditions, such as the inlet flow velocity. In this study, a numerical analysis was conducted to examine the effects of support count and inlet flow velocity on the thermal behavior of a vacuum-insulated double-wall pipe for liquefied hydrogen. Several support configurations with different numbers of supports were considered, and the inlet flow velocity was varied. Since direct modeling of high-vacuum conditions is limited in conventional CFD analysis, the vacuum layer was replaced with a solid region having an equivalent thermal conductivity. Steady-state conjugate heat transfer simulations were performed using ANSYS Fluent. The results indicate that changes in the number of supports affect the heat transfer characteristics of the piping system. As the support count increased, the temperature difference between the inlet and outlet of the inner pipe also increased. In addition, variations in inlet flow velocity influenced the outlet temperature behavior of the system. Based on these results, it can be concluded that support configuration and inlet flow velocity are factors to be considered in the thermal analysis and design of vacuum-insulated piping systems for liquefied hydrogen.