A proposed system for storing oxygen
in liquid form and dispensing it in
gaseous form is based on (1) initial subcooling
of the liquid oxygen; (2) containing
the liquid oxygen in a flexible
vessel; (3) applying a gas spring to the
flexible vessel to keep the oxygen compressed
above the saturation pressure
and, thus, in the liquid state; and (4)
using heat leakage into the system for
vaporizing the oxygen to be dispensed.
In a typical prior system based on these
principles, the flexible vessel is a metal
bellows housed in a rigid tank, and the
gas spring consists of pressurized helium
in the tank volume surrounding the bellows.
Unfortunately, the welds in the bellows
corrugations are subject to fatigue,
and, because bellows have large ullage, a
correspondingly large fraction of the
oxygen content cannot be expelled.
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