ARF to Create Industry Insulation Standards and Quality Control Guidelines
“Cold insulation systems are very finicky about how they are installed. Just like a cold beer on a hot humid day on your deck, water wants to condense from the air onto cold surfaces,” said Jim Young, technical director for ITW Insulation Systems. “Water is the enemy of insulation as it can cause corrosion, reduce the insulating ability, and even damage the insulation system. The key to a cold-pipe insulation system is designing it to keep water out. That is a tough thing to do, but it can be done with proper insulation system design and installation.”
“Cold insulation systems are very finicky about how they are installed. Just like a cold beer on a hot humid day on your deck, water wants to condense from the air onto cold surfaces.”
– Jim Young, technical director for ITW Insulation Systems
Because insulation is so critical, the Ammonia Refrigeration Foundation research project seeks to create installation guidelines for industrial refrigeration systems and a quality-assurance procedure for installation, which will help improve safety, economics, insulation system longevity, and process control. The project will focus on cold pipe, tank, and equipment insulation.
Dave Rule, president of the International Institute of Ammonia Refrigeration, said the insulation project was determined to be of importance to all IIAR members and there was interest in identifying the types of insulation systems that have worked best.
He said members are interested in which insulation is the most effective, particularly in protecting pipes from corrosion. They also want to know the most effective installation practices.
“That has always been an ongoing concern. It is an important concern in running a plant, maintaining the system and making appropriate decisions when modifying a system,” Rule said. “When building a new system, it will help engineers make good, safe decisions on how to build their systems and install them for maximum service life.”
Eric Teale, director refrigeration engineering/food and beverage sales for Corval Group Inc., said installation guidelines will allow all parties involved with installing insulation systems to speak a common language and have the same expectations for the finished product.
“The public will benefit from having insulation systems that provide safer, longer-lasting, and more energy-efficient system installations,” Teale said. “If the installation guidelines and quality assurance procedures are implemented at some future date, it will provide authorities having jurisdiction, inspectors and compliance officials criteria for inspections and approval of insulation systems.”
– Eric Teale, director refrigeration engineering/food and beverage sales, Corval Group, Inc.
Currently, insulation manufacturers offer proprietary guidelines, but those don’t provide the objectivity that an industry association can offer, Young said. “We realized that even if we as manufacturers have good installation guidelines, the industry lacks a good way of monitoring or controlling the installation of the insulation system,” he said.
What’s more, best practices vary from contractor to contractor, Teale explained. Most insulation is done by insulation contractors, and Young said the guidelines will provide information to help companies monitor installation and be sure it is done following industry standards.
Teale said that although manufacturers have created guidelines for how their specific products are to be used, they are not comprehensive on how to install the entirety of an insulation system. He added that the project is needed because end users, specifiers, inspectors and insulation contractors are left to rely on guidelines and procedures produced by insulation system material manufacturers. “These guidelines and procedures are often not specific to refrigeration systems and in certain instances are outdated or apply only for hot piping systems where the heat flux is in the opposite direction as compared to refrigeration systems,” he said.
The guidelines and procedures currently available are also incomplete in how they address such things as insulation joints, vapor retarder/barrier joints and insulation systems, Teale said. “It is at these joints and terminations that the insulation system is most susceptible to failures due to expansion and contraction forces and mechanical damage,” he said. “One of the end results is that the insulation thickness is increased by specifiers to decrease the heat flux into the insulation system giving false hope that this will prevent joints from failing and allowing moisture infiltration into the insulation system.”
Teale said insulation systems installed in accordance with the industry guidelines arising from this research will increase their longevity and performance. He said there will also be economic benefits due to facility owners, specifiers, material manufacturers and contractors not having to produce their own installation guidelines and quality-assurance procedures.
“The public will benefit from having insulation systems that provide safer, longer-lasting, and more energyefficient system installations,” Teale said. “If the installation guidelines and quality assurance procedures are implemented at some future date, it will provide authorities having jurisdiction, inspectors and compliance officials criteria for inspections and approval of insulation systems.”
IIAR and the Ammonia Refrigeration Foundation have been looking at the project for several years, and it was funded in late 2016. Young solicited project monitoring subcommittee members during the spring IIAR meeting and said he expects to begin holding meetings this summer. Young said the project will take two to three years to complete, and it will focus on compiling data and interviewing industry experts. “This is a bit of an unusual project in that it won’t include any experimentation,” Young said.
