2. Refrigerated and cryogenic tanks

2.1 General

As we saw in BM 6 590 (§ 3.2), liquefied gases can be stored at full pressure at ambient temperature, at reduced pressure in semi-refrigerated storage, or at atmospheric pressure. To reach the latter state, their temperature must be lowered, by an appropriate refrigeration system, to their normal boiling point. In the absence of pressure, they can thus be stored in simple vertical cylindrical tanks with flat bottoms. These storage units necessarily include high-performance thermal insulation that completely encapsulates the cold container to prevent the refrigerated product from heating up.