From CERN to the South Pole
From CERN to the South Pole
Gardner Cryogenics Has Helium Storage
and Transport Options in Place
A Special Equipment Report from Gardner Cryogenics
This month, CryoGas International focuses
on the helium market. Highly specialized and
complex storage and transport systems are
required to bring this unique product to market. Helium’s now legendary supply shortages
and its increasing cost have pushed companies
to develop more sophisticated options for its
transportation and storage.
One company known for its performance
in helium markets is Gardner Cryogenics, a
world-leading and standard-setting developer, designer, and manufacturer of high performance, highly reliable, and long lasting
UN portable and storage tanks for liquid
helium. With headquarters in Bethlehem,
Pennsylvania, Gardner Cryogenics has maintained unparalleled and unrelenting technical
superiority in the design and production of
UN portable tanks and storage tanks for liquefied helium since beginning the design and
manufacturing of the world’s largest liquid
helium tank containers (now UN portable
tanks) over four decades ago.
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Helium’s now legendary supply shortages and its increasing
cost have pushed companies to develop more sophisticated
options for its transportation and storage.
Gardner Cryogenics’ expertise in this market is validated by the product reliability and
longevity of its tanks. In fact since the first
11,000 gallon liquid helium tank built in
1973, only four units, out of over 1,200 of the
11,000 gallon portable tanks built by Gardner
Cryogenics, are out-of-service. Of these four,
one shipboard unit sank with a ship that
caught fire in the Pacific Ocean. Another unit
was dropped at port from a height of 13
meters and fell on to ground structures sustaining severe dents and making it uneconomical to repair. The third unit was virtually
inflated out of shape by an inexperienced
retesting shop that subjected the pressure vessel to over four times the maximum allowable
working pressure during retesting for continued-service. And the fourth unit was damaged at a helium delivery site beyond repair
when a 250 psig liquid nitrogen source was
connected to the six psig rated liquid nitrogen
reservoir on the tank.
The first 11,000 gallon liquid helium tank
developed by Gardner Cryogenics in 1973
was primarily for transporting liquid helium
from the United States to Europe and Japan.
This effort required only a maximum of 30
days hold-time without product loss, and
usage of helium at that time only required a
maximum allowable working pressure of 64
psig. As helium use and the global market
grew, especially in Singapore, India, and
June 2014 — CryoGas International
Australia, Gardner developed a 91 psig tank
with either a 35- or 45-day hold-time without loss of helium. The primary difference
between these two types of tanks was that
the 45-day hold-time tank had a higher liquid nitrogen capacity, and the 35-day holdtime tank had a helium gas shield. The
helium gas shield could be used for optimum liquid availability at the delivery destination with very little helium gas venting
through the helium gas shield. Incidentally,
both of these tanks, which became the new
standards in the industry, were produced
with insulation and support technology
innovations Gardner developed through fundamental research, and came about at the
dawn of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
(which needed helium as liquid), and also as
helium markets involving long transportation times were evolving.
In serving another developing market,
when the world needed increased quantities
of optical fiber, Gardner Cryogenics provided
a key solution to that product’s manufacture
by developing a 151 psig working pressure
11,000 gallon tank with a pressure build-up
coil that delivered high flow rates of helium
directly from the transportation tank for cooling the optical fiber being produced.
And along the way, Gardner also developed a light-weight vacuum jacket for 11,000
gallon tanks, which meets all the applicable
codes, standards, and regulatory requirements and provide a higher level of accident
protection over any light weight vacuum
jacketed design in the market.
The results of years of pioneering
research and development work at Gardner
Cryogenics, combined with the experience
from over four decades of outstanding success in design and production of liquid
helium tanks, are all integrated into the company’s latest offering which is viewed as the
ultimate 11,000 gallon liquid helium UN
portable tank. The maximum allowable
working pressure of this tank is 175 psig,
much higher than most house-line pressure
ratings of major helium consumers. This
enables direct delivery of helium from the
tank to the house-line through a vaporizer
without the use of compressors or high pressure tube trailers. The tank is also provided
with a pressure build-up coil to enable high
rates of helium transfer out of the tank to
meet the most demanding applications.
The shield system in this tank is engineered to deliver all liquid with very little
June 2014 — CryoGas International
venting of helium gas. It can deliver all
helium gas without any loss of helium, and
any ratio of gas to liquid which facilitates the
optimized operation of the tank to meet the
customer market requirements. The guaranteed 40-day hold time of this tank is sufficient to transport helium to any helium use
location around the world without having to
reduce the helium pressure or top off liquid
nitrogen during the 40-day travel time.
Another outstanding feature of this new tank
is the ability of its shield system to automatically reduce helium loss by 60–80 percent
when pressure exceeds 90 percent of the
maximum allowable working pressure of the
tank in the event of inadequate cool down,
shipping schedule delays, customs clearance
delays, or handling delays at the port. This
tank caters to all the needs of an existing
helium operation for both liquid or gas
demands and is ideally suited for new or
growing helium operations as it eliminates
the need for multiple types of liquid helium
tanks. The market has received this new
product offering with great enthusiasm
because of its outstanding thermal performance and versatility. Even though this tank
was introduced just three years ago, it
already is a substantial market leader.
Gardner Cryogenics has also developed a
transient shield system which extracts and
stores refrigeration from helium gas exiting a
tank. It is primarily used in portable tanks
and stationary storage tanks of capacities up
to 5,000 gallons. The transient shield system
yields the world’s lowest heat leak rates —
as low as 0.008 btu/hr/ft² — for tanks of
these capacities. With a maximum allowable
working pressure of 175 psig, the 1,800,
3,400, and 5,000 gallon portable tanks can
deliver up to three times the respective quantities of helium that a jumbo tube trailer can
deliver without the cost of compression
equipment or the cost of power for compression. There also are savings associated with
lower transportation costs.
In addition to Gardner Cryogenics’ highly
successful UN portable tanks for liquid
helium, the company has designed and built
33,000 gallon liquid helium stationary storage tanks for the helium industry over the last
35 years with unparalleled thermal performance and reliability.
A key strength at Gardner Cryogenics is its
people. All engineers in the company’s Engineering group have, at a minimum, a master’s
degree in mechanical engineering from a rep-
From CERN to the South Pole
utable university and are highly research and
development oriented. The engineers are specialists in applied mechanics, thermal engineering, cryogenic processes, multi-shield
technology, multi-layer insulation, heat transfer analysis, systems engineering, structural
analysis, material science, welding technology, and manufacturing processes.
Gardner technical personnel are highly
customer-oriented. The company’s team has
extensive helium experience and has solved
some of the most challenging customer problems in the world. For example, Gardner
developed a 270-day hold-time liquid helium
transport tank for atmospheric research at the
South Pole, which is inaccessible for nine
months of the year. The company also produced the lowest heat leak 33,000 gallon liquid helium storage tanks for CERN, the
laboratory of the European Organization for
Nuclear Research, and other physicists, and
engineers who are probing the fundamental
structure of the universe near Geneva,
Switzerland. Gardner Cryogenics has a total
commitment to confidentiality and customer
service and ensures its customers that the
world’s most talented and experienced
helium team is always there to support them
and develop solutions to their issues.
Gardner Cryogenics’ technical team is
also very active in standards, codes, and regulatory affairs. In fact, the standards of the
Compressed Gas Association (CGA), European Union (EU), and the International
Organization for Standardization (ISO) for
pressure relief devices design are using technology developed by Gardner Cryogenics
for pressure relief design for fluid near critical pressure. The technical team contributes
regularly to the development of codes and
standards.
All Gardner products are designed and
built with utmost consideration for safety of
its employees, customer personnel, and the
public, incorporating learnings from decades
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of helium and hydrogen experience.
For more information on Gardner Cryogenics, visit www.gardnercryo.com or direct
contact to: Engineering Manager Alex
Varghese at VARGHEAP@gardnercryo.
com; Sales Manager Gary Weber at
WEBERGR@gardnercryo.com; Sales Representative Joni Kulp at KULPJM@gardner
cryo.com
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