The President of TPS, David Shong, recently published a technical paper for an ASTM International Symposium called STP1629 “Performance, Properties, and Resilience of Thermal Insulations” sponsored by the C16 subcommittee. The symposium featured “nine peer-reviewed papers with state-of-the-art knowledge on topics related to performance resiliency of thermal insulation materials in the built environment.”

The paper discusses the history of calcium silicate (calsil) “as the workhorse industrial insulation for oil refineries, power and chemical plants, and pulp and paper mills.” Due to several historical reasons regarding the formulation of first generation calsil, the insulation became associated with higher rates of corrosion under insulation (CUI). This caused the market for calsil to decline and all producers to exit the market leaving only a single firm by 2002.

In 2018, TPS launched the first new calsil insulation that could levy legitimate competition in the North American market by meeting and exceeding all physical property requirements in accordance with ASTM C533 type I. “This paper discusses advances in manufacturing technology and economic influences that fully address the historically cited reasons that engineers eliminated calsil insulation from their specifications.”

Please contact TPS directly if you would like to discuss the paper or your industrial insulation needs.

https://www.astm.org/stp162920190167.html