The Effect of a Teflon Insulation Layer Installed Inside the Pump on the Insulation of a Centrifugal Pump for Transporting Liquid Hydrogen

One of the most important goals in developing centrifugal pumps for liquid hydrogen transport is to minimize the temperature rise of the working fluid caused by internal and external heat sources during operation. In this paper, as part of our evaluation of the internal insulation characteristics of a centrifugal pump for liquid hydrogen transport, we removed the external vacuum insulation layer and installed a Teflon insulation layer inside the pump. We investigated the process of heat transfer from the outside to the working fluid due to internal heat flow loss during the pumping process and the resulting temperature rise of the working fluid through CHT (Conjugate Heat Transfer) analysis. The results show that, compared to a pump without a Teflon insulation layer, increasing the insulation layer thickness to 10 mm reduces external heat input from about 1300 W to 300 W. Furthermore, the Teflon insulation layer reduces the heat generated by internal heat flow losses during pump operation from approximately 37 W to 11 W.