Design and analysis of a large transportable vacuum insulated cryogenic vessel

Abstract: This project has been undertaken by Alejandro Unda García and Carlos Muñoz Alonso for Veprox AB (www.veprox.se), a Swedish engineering company, in collaboration with the School of Technology and Society at the University of Skövde (www.his.se). This thesis represents the final project for the Bachelor Degree Exam in Mechanical Engineering during the academic year 2009-2010. To achieve this project, we were helped and supported by Peter Höglund, Veprox AB Office Manager; Tomas Walander, Supervisor and M. Sc. student and Karl Mauritsson, Examiner and Lecturer, both belonging to the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the School of Technology and Society of the University of Skövde. This project is aimed to study, design and analyze a large transportable vacuum insulated cryogenic vessel that will be attached to a truck in order to keep, maintain and transport by road liquid methane at a temperature of -162 °C. Considerations such as different pressure loads, dimensions, materials as well as their mechanical properties, constraints, masses, insulation systems and weather-environmental conditions (Northern Europe) are made in the mechanical analysis. Furthermore, calculations and dimensions satisfy the requirements given by the Swedish Standards Institute (S.I.S) following the standards SS-EN 13530-1: Cryogenic vessels - Large transportable vacuum insulated vessel; Part 1: Fundamental requirements and SS-EN 13530-2: Cryogenic vessels - Large transportable vacuum insulated vessel; Part 2: Design, fabrication, inspection and testing. The CAD software Pro/Engineer Wildfire 4.0 is used to visualize the models for the chosen designs. In addition, the finite element module Pro/Mechanica is used to obtain results of mechanical analyses in order to determine if the stresses are within margins.