Pressure Phenomena During Transfer of Saturated Cryogenic Fluids

Abstract

Several methods are used to transfer cryogenic liquids. These vary from mechanical means, such as with a transfer pump, to pressurizing with a gas. There have been a number of papers describing these techniques in past conferences. The pressurizing gas may be the same as the fluid being transferred to avoid contamination or it may be a gas which will not condense during the transfer. A typical example of the latter would be the use of helium gas for pressurizing liquid oxygen, since the helium would not condense at liquid oxygen temperatures. Where product purity would not be important it might be useful to pressurize oxygen with nitrogen gas although some condensation will probably occur depending on the transfer pressure.