About Heat Leak

The following information is reproduced from Dr. Thomas Flynn's "Cryogenic Engineering" 1997
Marcel Dekker, Inc., p. 64 (conversions courtesy of Technifab).
Heat leak(BTU/hr per foot) for typical rigid vacuum insulated pipe
Pipe Size
(Inner X Jacket)
Inches(mm)
LN2 LH2
BTU/hr-ft W/m BTU/hr-ft W/m
0.75* X 1.5 (19 x 38) 0.38 0.034 0.41 0.037
0.75 X 2.0 (19 x 51) 0.43 0.038 0.46 0.041
1.0 X 2.5 (25 x 64) 0.48 0.043 0.52 0.046
1.5 X 3.0 (38 x 76) 0.58 0.052 0.63 0.056
2.0 X 4.0 (51 x 102) 0.79 0.071 0.85 0.076
3.0 X 5.0 (76 x 127) 0.99 0.088 1.08 0.096
4.0 X 6.0 (102 x 152) 1.29 0.115 1.41 0.126
6.0 X 8.0 (152 x 203) 1.66 0.148 1.84 0.164
*Outer Diameter (O.D.) of tube. All other sizes are nominal pipe sizes (NPS).
In a typical vacuum jacketed pipe system the various fittings, spacers, valves, and bayonet
connections will each amount to about 1.24 equivalent feet (0.38m) of pipe.
The above table gives the expected heat leak per foot of pipe for both liquid nitrogen and liquid
hydrogen as a function of pipe size. The flow rate is not a parameter. This is the case because
fully developed turbulent flow is assumed. For laminar flow to exist, the pipe diameter would have
to be extremely large, resulting in excessive capital cost per foot and unnecessarily high heat leak
per foot. At turbulent flow conditions, the controlling thermal resistance to heat leak is that of the
vacuum space. Solid thermal conductivity through the pipe walls, as well as the heat transfer
coefficient to turbulent cryogenic liquid, are both negligible compared to that of the apparent
thermal conductivity of the vacuum space. Thus, under conditions of use, heat leak per foot of
pipe is completely determined by the effectiveness of the vacuum insulation alone and hence
depends primarily upon the pipe diameter.
The table shows very little increase in heat leak in changing from liquid nitrogen to liquid
hydrogen. The two heat leak conditions are within about 10% of each other even though the
temperature of the inner pipe has dropped from 77 K to 20 K. From simple relative heat transfer
calculations alone we would expect the heat leak to increase by a factor of 16 =
(77/20). However, the actual case is that the hydrogen temperatures do a much better job of
cryopumping than do the liquid nitrogen cooled surfaces. Thus, at 77 K, there is still some
residual gas conduction, which is not present at 20 K. Hence, the apparent thermal conductivities
are not that much different.

The latent heat of vaporization hfg of liquid nitrogen is 2 105 J/kg.