Criticalities In High Pressure Cryogenic Test
Facilities
A.S.Ramasubramanian1, S. Antony Manicka Raja2, V.Michael Packiaraja3
TCT/CTTF/CSSTF/TSE/IPRC, Mahendragiri
s_rama@iprc.gov.in1,antony1985@iprc.gov.in2, michael@iprc.space.gov.in3
Abstract—An indigenously developed cryogenic
engine using Liquid Oxygen (LOX) and Liquid Hydrogen
(LH2) as propellants powers the upper stage of the
Indian launch vehicle. The engine works on the gas
generator cycle which aid in the modular development
of the engine, wherein, individual subsystems were
developed and tested independently. For the
development of thrust chamber, thrust chamber had to
be tested in standalone pressure fed mode without the
turbo pumps to qualify it at nominal and off nominal
conditions. In this regard, a unique facility named Thrust
Chamber Test facility was realized at ISRO Propulsion
Complex, Mahendragiri.
During the realization & commissioning of the facility
and testing of the thrust chamber, certain challenges
were encountered. Approaches adopted to negate the
challenges posed by chilldown of high-pressure
cryogenic tanks, chill down of high-pressure cryogenic
fluid transfer super insulated pipelines, rapid
pressurization requirement from the test article and
selection of flow components for high pressure
applications are detailed in this paper.
Keywords—high pressure run tanks, cryogenic run tank,
Super insulated pipeline, regulated chilldown, conditioning,
annular flow, pressurization
I. INTRODUCTION
The cryogenic upper stage test requirements required a
test facility to be established for independent testing and
development of thrust chamber(TC) in pressure fed mode.
The cryogenic engine works on Gas Generator cycle. The
CE20 TC test requires propellants to be supplied at about 16
MPa at the inlet of the CE20-TC. Hence a test facility was
established to perform developmental and qualification test
of the thrust chamber for the cryogenic engine in pressure
fed mode. Separate run tanks of 4.1m3 capacity for Liquid
Oxygen and 9.6m3 capacity for liquid Hydrogen with design
pressure of 22 MPa and a thickness of 115mm were
employed for testing. The chill down and filling of these
high pressure run tanks could not be carried out by directly
admitting the liquid cryogen into the tank due to the high
thermal stresses. Hence novel methods of chill down like
regulated chill down with conditioned liquid nitrogen is
being used for chill down of run tank.
The propellant feed circuits are super insulated(SI)
circuits with size DN 150(inner pipe) and a design pressure
of 22 MPa with wall thickness of 18 mm. Chill down of the
SI piping was also performed in a controlled flow rates to
avoid bowing of the pipes. The length of the feed circuits
connecting the run tank and the CE20-TC was 76m. The
thermo structural flexibility of the feed circuit was ensured
by the pipe routing without the usage of bellows in the inner
pipe of SI piping due to non-availability of reliable bellows
at the required service pressures.
The CE20-TC configuration called for rapid
pressurization of the runtank from just above ambient
pressures to test pressure(13MPa to 16 MPa) in 30seconds
and the pressure being maintained at a stringent tolerance of
±0.3 MPa. Elaborate studies and large number of trials were
carried out for tuning the control valves to perform in the
required manner and for establishment of test sequence for
ensuring pressure being maintained within the required
bandwidth in the test.
Specific seal configurations in flange joints were adopted
in the cryogenic high pressure run tank and the DN150 SI
piping flange joints. The body bonnet joints in the cryogenic
service valves were provided with inter-seal venting
configuration with gaseous helium purging to avoid
insulation vacuum collapse in case of any leak during high
pressure service.
II. CRITICALITIES AND SOLUTIONS ADOPTED
A. Chill down of high pressure cryogenic runtank
For every test campaign, high pressure cryogenic tank
had to be subjected to chilldown from ambient temperature
to cryogenic temperature, then pressurization and expulsion
of the cryogenic fluid with ambient temperature pressurant
gas and then warming up of the tank to ambient temperature.
All the above activities when uncontrolled can result in high
thermal gradient across the thickness of the walls of the
cryogenic tank. High thermal gradient will result in high
thermal stresses which will reduce the fatigue life of the tank.
To ensure required fatigue life of the tank it is necessary to
control the tank operations to reduce the thermal stresses.
The pressurization and expulsion of the cold tank with
ambient temperature pressurant gas is inevitable and could
not be adapted to reduce its effect on the fatigue life. Hence
thermal stresses due to sudden heating of the cold tank inner
wall due to pressurization needs to be absorbed in the fatigue
life of the tank. Warming up of the tank can be a slow
process taking a month duration by which thermal gradients
are avoided. But the chilldown of the tank can be controlled
to reduce the induced thermal stresses.
The chilldown of the tank can be performed by three
methods: (1) by liquid nitrogen at the temperature of -1960C;
(2) by cold gaseous nitrogen just above the saturation
temperature and (3) by dispersed two-phase flow consisting
of liquid droplets dispersed in vapor.
However chilldown with gaseous nitrogen is
uneconomical since the latent heat of evaporation is not used
in the process of metal chilldown, thereof the consumption of
nitrogen will be increased by 4-5 times. This method requires
much increase in the storage capacities. Also chilldown with
liquid nitrogen is an uncontrolled process and characterized
by the specific conditions of boiling, wherein the heat
transfer coefficient varies from 250 to 2500 W/m2.K.
The chilldown with two phase flow(dispersed droplet) is
a controlled process since the heat transfer depends on the
velocity of the gas component of the flow and the heat
transfer coefficient is in the range 100 to 600 W/m2.K. Hence
tank chill down with two phase flow was adopted. The two
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phase flow was achieved by adiabatic expansion of saturated A typical graph showing the parameters during the LOX tank
liquid through a convergent-divergent nozzle. The tanks has chilldown is shown below:
been provided with two nozzles of throat ᴓ2mm at the
bottom for the expansion of saturated liquid into the tank.
Saturated liquid nitrogen at 0.8 ±0.1 MPa was supplied from
tanker and expanded through the nozzle. Such a two-phase
flow, out of the nozzle, behaves like gas but maintained at
constant temperature due to evaporation of droplets. This
process also ensures effective utilization of latent heat of
vaporization. Hence chill down with saturated liquid nitrogen
at 0.8MPa(100.39K) expanded through a convergent-
divergent nozzle was selected.
The calculations for nitrogen chilldown show that the
heat transfer coefficient in the range of 12W/m2.K to 22
W/m2.K depending upon the circulation intensity of the
cooling down medium inside the tank. Results of the analysis
show that the time for chilldown of liquid hydrogen tank can
be from 2 to 4 days.
The thermo-structural analysis of tank with three variants
of configuration was performed, (1) with protective shield at
both top dome and shell (2) with protective shield at only top Fig.2 Chill down of High Pressure LOX run tank with
dome end and (3) without protective shield. The protective conditioned LN2(Plots for 2nd day chilldown activity)
shield is a metallic shield with shield to vessel gap taken as
In LH2 run tank, medium substitution with ambient
50mm.
gaseous hydrogen, after completion of conditioned LN2
The results show that for variant (2) & (3), the stresses chilldown to a temperature of near 100K, resulted in severe
during pressurization exceeds over permissible stresses. warming up of the tank. Hence chilldown of the LH2 run
Hence the variant configuration (1) was selected. tank was carried out with cold hydrogen vapor obtained by
Vessel cyclic life strength calculations were also mixing liquid hydrogen and ambient hydrogen through the
performed. By limiting the vessel chilldown/warming up rate DCHE. And because of the inherent better fluid heat transfer
to 30K/hr, it is established by standards that a minimum of properties of cold gaseous hydrogen, the chilldown and
1000 cycles is ensured. filling of the LH2 runtank was successfully established in 6
days.
Considering the above design constraints the following
flow schematic was employed for preparation of condition
B. Chill down of high pressure Super Insulated Cryogenic
liquid nitrogen(LN2@ 0.8MPa & 100.3K) in a Direct
Pipelines
Contact type Heat Exchanger(DCHE).
The mass flow for chilldown of super insulated pipeline
is restricted to a lower and an upper limit. Furthermore the
flow is controlled to achieve an optimal trade-off between
minimal cryogen consumption and minimal chill down time.
The lower limit is defined by the "non stratified flow"
condition. A stable phase separation in the flow with liquid
streaming on the bottom and gas on the top of the pipe
results in differences of the heat transfer rate of about one
magnitude. This may lead to faster cool down of the bottom
of the pipe which may cause differential thermal strains in
the top and bottom of the pipe. This phenomena is called as
“bowing”. A rough idea of the minimal mass flow is shown
in the graphs in figure 3 as shown by D.H.Liebenberg et
al[3], which were used as guideline for minimum flowrate to
be maintained while chilldown.

Fig.1 Flow Schematic for LN2 conditioning

The conditioned LN2 was then used to chill down the
high pressure LOX runtank by expanding through a
convergent divergent nozzle located at the bottom of the
runtank. A regulated flow rate of the LN2 was used to
control the rate of chill down within 30K/hr. On achieving
near 100K temperature LOX was gradually filled in the tank.

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Fig 3. Minimum flow rate required for non-stratified flow of
saturated liquid (courtesy: D.H.Liebenberg et al[3])
It may be note from the figure 3 that in the hydrogen
system the danger of bowing due to stratified flow is much
lower than for oxygen as the differences in the density
between the two phases and the viscosity of hydrogen is
lower promoting the formation of waves and thus a better
mixture of the phases.
Since the chill down of a system is a highly transient
process, containing an enormous change of density along
the pipe, the mass flow into the pipe is different (higher)
than the mass flow out of the pipe until steady temperatures
at the outlet of the pipe are reached. This effect in particular
makes it impossible to control the mass flow at a pipe
location that is far upstream of the valve controlling the
flow, because the density at the controlling valve differs
greatly from the density at the inflow during the cool-down
transient. Furthermore the mass flow itself cannot be
measured and hence is unknown, even though the level
decline in the tanker gives an idea about the average mass
flow.
Hence a flow rate of just above 1.9kg/s for LOX and
0.25kg/s for LH2 is chosen for chill down of the super
insulated inner pipe size of DN150 sch 160s. The control
valve opening is set accordingly to achieve the required
flow rates.
The other criticality with chill down of high pressure
pipelines is that due to non availability of reliable bellows
for DN150 size and 22.0MPa applications. The flexibility of
the pipeline to accommodate the thermal strains during chill
down was managed with pipeline routing and proper pipe
supports with required degrees of freedom. The pipeline
routing of 76m length from high pressure cryogenic run tank
and the thrust chamber interface routing is given in figure 4
Fig. 4: Super insulated SI pipeline routing from high
pressure cryogenic run tank to thrust chamber interface.
C. Rapid Pressurisation of Cryogenic Runtank
The configuration of the thrust chamber and its
associated valves and pipelines posted a unique requirement
to limit the time required to start high pressure chilling after
completion of low pressure chilling within 30s. This
requirement was to prevent pressure rise in an enclosed low
pressure cavity to unacceptable levels during changeover
from low pressure chilling to high pressure chilling. This
leads to a constraint on high pressure cryogenic run tank
pressurization to required test values within required
bandwidth to be performed with 30s.After pressurization of
the run tank, the flow rates were increased in three steps of
30%,40% and 30% of the total intended flow rates.
The run tank and the circuits were connected and the run
tank was pressurized by supplying gaseous nitrogen from
high pressure cylinders up to 40 MPa through an electro
pneumatic isolation valve and a control valve.
The schematic of the tank pressurization is given below.
Fig 4. Schematic of High Pressure Cryogenic Runtank at
thrust chamber test facility
The pressurization trails were initially conducted with
manual sequences by varying the timing and percentage of
openings of the control valve as per the flow and pressure
requirements. The required accuracy of pressure
maintenance of ±3bar throughout the test duration was not
achieved by adopting open loop trials.
It was decided to carryout closed loop pressurization of
run tank and maintaining the pressure in the run tank by
using a control valve by using the run tank pressure as the
required process parameter. In this regard, a typical
Proportional, Integral and Derivative (PID) algorithm was
implemented in the Programmable Logic Controller (PLC)
and the operations were automated by using an auto
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sequence for the operations. Hence, a closed loop control for
the process (tank pressure) was achieved by Controller with
Proportional, Integral and Derivative terms acting on the
error signal.(Set point-actual pressure) .The control valve
opening was adjusted based on the error signal between the
set point and the tank pressure.
Based on mathematically arrived PID constants, trials
were conducted to further fine tune the constants based on
the system and process behavior. Final sequence used for
tank pressurization was
Time period Run tank pressure
T0- 00:00:30 to T0- 00:00:25 0.5 to 10 MPa
T0- 00:00:25 to T0- 00:00:20 10 to 12.9 MPa
T0- 00:00:20 to T0- 00:00:15 12.9 to 14.5 MPa
T0- 00:00:15- T0+50s 14.5 MPa±0.3 MPa
With fine tuned PID constants, a typical tank
pressurization plot is given in the figure below.
III. SUMMARY
D. Selection of Flow Components for High pressure
applications
The flow components had to be selected with special
features for application in high pressure service. The
electro-pneumatic valves for isolation in DN150 pipeline
were flow to close type valve with a pilot plug within main
plug configuration. Flow to close type configuration enables
pipeline pressure at the inlet to aid in closing the valve and
thus better leak tightness. But to avoid oversized actuators to
overcome this pressure aided valve closure configuration a
pilot plug inside the main plug is configured which reduces
the differential pressure across main plug, thus enabling
opening of valve with lesser actuator thrust.
The body bonnet flange joints of electro-pneumatic
isolation and control valves were selected to be twin seal
with inter-seal venting option. The vent cavity of the inter-
seal space was maintained with helium purge to prevent
ingress of moisture during test at high pressures, if there was
no leak.
The DN150 flange joints were used to reposition a pipe
spool to divert propellant service between sea-level and high
altitude simulation test bay. The flange and seal
configuration of these joints were selected to be wedge type
seal with malleable indium based seal material. These seals
expand against the walls and offer better leak tightness at
high pressure.
The procedures and the component selections detailed in
this document were implemented in the thrust chamber test
facility to qualify the CE20 thrust chamber successfully.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We would like to thank the management of IPRC,
Mahendragiri for giving us the freedom, guidance and
wisdom to overcome the different challenges encountered
during the realization and operation of high pressure
cryogenic test facility.
REFERENCES
[1] Anand Kumar Parsai et. Al. , “Modeling and Simulation of High
Pressure Cryogenic Process for Optimum Closed Loop Control,”
2015 International Conference on Industrial Instrumentation and
Control (ICIC), DOI: 10.1109/IIC.2015.7150980, July 2015
[2] A. Narayanan et al on “Design of Fluid Sytems for Thrust chamber
test facility” Report No:LPSC/LMF/CTF/TR/123/2003 (controlled
document), March 2003
[3] D.H. Liebenberg, J.K. Novak, F.J. Edeskuty on “Cooldown of
Cryogenic Transfer Systems” AIAA Paper No. 67-475, August 2012