---
title: In a Simulated Hydrogen Tank, More Than 85% of the Heat Came In Through the Legs
description: In a simulated marine liquid hydrogen tank, more than 85% of the heat entered through four structural supports, not the insulation layers.
author: Darie Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
updated: 2026-07-31T19:29:08.983Z
canonical: https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/liquid-hydrogen-tank-heat-structural-supports
categories: Green Tech
content_type: News
region: South Korea
publication: Sovereign Magazine
access: members
schema_type: Article
---

The case for moving hydrogen as a liquid is straightforward. Chilled to about 20 K, or minus 253 degrees Celsius, it packs roughly 800 times the energy into a given volume that the gas does at ordinary conditions, which is what makes shipping it over long distances worth considering at all. The difficulty is holding it there. Heat that finds its way in boils the liquid off, pressure rises inside the tank, and the operator is left reliquefying, venting or managing the pressure, all of which cost money.

The instinct is to answer that with more insulation. A team at Pusan National University in South Korea, modelling a marine tank in three dimensions, [found the heat was mostly going somewhere else](https://www.pusan.ac.kr/eng/CMS/Board/Board.do?mCode=MN104&mode=view&board_seq=1510070). In the baseline configuration of the tank they simulated, with no active cooling running, more than 85 per cent of the heat entering it travelled through the four structural supports rather than through the insulation layers at all. The supports were acting as thermal bridges, high-conductance shortcuts straight past the material meant to stop exactly that.

## Supports Are Shortcuts Through the Insulation

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