Corrugated fluid-tight membrane fluid-tight wall (1) including two series of parallel corrugations forming a plurality of nodes (5) at the crossings of said series of corrugations, wave reinforcements (11) being arranged under the corrugations (3) of the first series of corrugations (3), two successive wave reinforcements (11) in a corrugation (3) each including a hollow sole (15) and a reinforcement portion (16) disposed above the sole (15), the two wave reinforcements (11) being developed in the corrugation (3) on either side of a node (5), a connecting member (13) at the level of the node (5) being nested in the soles (15) of said two wave reinforcements (11) in such a manner as to assemble the two wave reinforcements (11) in an aligned position.

An apparatus and method of storing and transporting, in a dual-use cryogenic storage tank, a cryogenic liquid having a liquefaction temperature. A first pump empties the tank of a first portion of the cryogenic liquid, thereby leaving a second portion of the cryogenic liquid in the cryogenic storage tank. A second portion of the cryogenic liquid is focused at a location on a bottom of the cryogenic storage tank. Using a second pump located at the location, the cryogenic storage tank is emptied of the second portion of the cryogenic liquid, whereby a residual portion of the cryogenic liquid is left therein. Using a focused heating structure, heat may be delivered to the location to raise the temperature of the residual portion above the liquefaction temperature, thereby vaporizing all of the residual portion.

A sealed and thermally insulating wall for a tank for storing fluid includes a heat-insulating panel and a sealing plate. The inner face of the heat-insulating panel has a stress-relieving slot.

An installation for storing and transporting a cryogenic fluid on a ship includes: a sealed and thermally insulating tank, having a ceiling wall including, from the outside to the inside, a primary thermally insulating barrier and a primary sealing membrane intended to be in contact with the cryogenic fluid; and a sealed line penetrating through the ceiling wall of the tank, the line including a bottom portion of which a first end is situated inside the ceiling wall of the tank and a second end is situated outside the ceiling wall of the tank in a thicknesswise direction of the ceiling wall, and a top portion fixed to the second end of the bottom portion. The bottom portion includes an alloy with low thermal expansion coefficient. The primary sealing membrane is tightly fixed to the bottom portion of the line around the line.

The present invention utilize a combination of wooden elements (20, 21), stainless steel membranes (22) and insulating materials in embodiments of the present invention. An object of the present invention is to be able to build the LNG tank separately from the building of the ship, and fit a complete or nearly complete LNG tank into the space of the ship hull when appropriate during the process of building the ship. Therefore, the building of the tank and the ship can be done in parallel, which by experience reduces the total time of building the ship considerably, and hence provide substantial cost savings.

The invention relates to an installation for storing and transporting a liquefied gas, having a sealed pipe (7) that passes through the tank wall so as to define a fluid passage between the inside and the outside of the tank, a sealed metal sheath (29) that is disposed around the sealed pipe (7) and fitted in the opening (22) in the load-bearing wall, the sealed sheath having a longitudinal portion extending at least as far as the sealing membrane (14), the sealing membrane being joined to the sealed sheath (29) in a sealed manner, wherein the load-bearing structure comprises a coaming (24) that protrudes from an outer surface of the load-bearing wall, the sealed pipe being supported by a top wall (26) of the coaming, the sealed sheath (29) having an outer end that is disposed outside the load-bearing wall and attached to the coaming or to the sealed pipe (7) all around the sealed pipe.

An insulation box of an insulating barrier in a liquefied gas carrier includes a box structure that includes a bottom panel, a top panel, external pillars, and optionally at least one internal partition that define at least one void. The at least one void includes at least one multilayer insulation board. Each of the at least one multilayer insulation board includes at least one facer layer, at least one first polyurethane layer having a first density from 100 kg/m.sup.3 to 2000 kg/m.sup.3 according to ASTM D 1622, and at least one second polyurethane layer having a second density of less than 100 kg/m.sup.3 according to ASTM D 1622.

A sealed and thermally-insulating fluid storage tank includes an angle arrangement placed at the intersection between the first and the second walls. The storage tank also includes a first and a second insulating blocks respectively retained on the first and second walls of the supporting structure and forming a corner of the thermally insulating barrier; and a metal angle structure forming a corner of the sealing membrane which is welded onto the plurality of metal plates of the first and second insulating blocks. Each of the first and second insulating blocks is associated with an adjacent insulating panel via a bridging element. Each of the first and second insulating blocks has at least one first and one second stress-relief slots extending respectively parallel and at right angles to the intersection between the first and the second walls.

Disclosed is a membrane bonding structure for bonding a membrane for forming a sealed wall between first and second surfaces of a storage tank for storing liquefied gas. The membrane bonding structure may comprise: a planar portion panel installed on the first and second surfaces so as to thermally insulate the storage tank; a bonding panel installed on the boundary portion between the first and second surfaces together with the planar portion panel; a first membrane attached to the planar portion panel on the first surface and to the bonding panel so as to seal the storage tank; and a second membrane attached to the planar portion panel on the second surface and to the bonding panel so as to seal the storage tank. The first membrane and the second membrane may be attached to the bonding panel so as to make no direct connection.

A tank that has a tank wall having a secondary insulating barrier, a primary insulating barrier, a primary sealed membrane and a secondary sealed membrane, the tank wall having a first area in which the insulating modules include spacers extending in a thickness direction of the tank wall between a cover panel and a bottom panel of said insulating modules, a second area in which a cover panel of the insulating modules is kept at a distance from a bottom panel by a structural insulating foam, a transition area interposed between the first area and the second area, the transition area having a coefficient of thermal contraction and/or a modulus of elasticity in the thickness direction of the tank wall which is between that of the first area and that of the second area.