Indian Journal of Cryogenics

Injection cooling is a method to reduce the boil-off loss of cryogenic liquids, and has been applied in space launch vehicles. In this, subcooling due to liquid evaporation into the gas bubble causes a reduction in the liquid boil-off. Extent of evaporation depends on the gasliquid interfacial area, and heat and mass transfer rates. Hence, gas flow rate, gas injection temperature and system configuration have profound effect on liquid subcooling. Optimum values of process variables are needed to maximize the process performance. The present study involves the development of an optimization strategy to minimize the evaporative loss of cryogenic liquid in injection cooling. Genetic Algorithm (GA) has been applied for this purpose as it enables the determination of global optimum values of various process variables. An in-house code has been developed to carry out optimization studies on the injection cooling.