The paper presents a semi-analytical model aiming to study the thermomechanical behavior of the insulation/metallic shell assembly of cryogenic reservoirs during the fueling step. The proposed model is applied to explore the influences of material properties and insulation dimensions on the stress distributions, and the ranges of applicability of the classical design formula. The present parametric study shows that the Poisson's ratio strains have significant effects on stress fields in the insulation. The through-thickness shear deformation in the insulation must be taken into account for avoiding erroneous failure prediction. The maximum normal and shear stresses occur respectively at the center and close to free borders of the insulating panel. The failure of the assembly will occur in the insulating foam component or at least at the foam/adhesive interface due to the higher stiffness and strength of cryogenic adhesive layer than the foam. In addition, the adhesive layer can be neglected in the modeling by assuming the insulation putted in direct contact with the metallic shell. The applicability ranges of classical simple formula often used to dimension reservoir insulation are summarized in Table 2. When one of these conditions is not fulfilled, the proposed semi-analytical or more complex approaches should be used. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.