Aerogel Academy

When an event resulted in damage to the existing removable insulation blankets on a gas turbine, it led to an unplanned outage at a combined cycle generating facility. Exiting the outage and restarting the plant was contingent upon re-making the insulation blankets and applying them to the turbine as quickly as possible. That's why the facility's contractor turned to Pyrogel® HPS. 

The weight of insulation is becoming increasingly critical for today's congested industrial sites. For some sites, turnaround and maintenance schedules can be negatively impacted by space and weight limitations—just think about the use of cranes where space is restricted as an example. In this post, we focus on the weight of thermal insulation, including when it becomes an important consideration for refinery and chemical processing engineers.

What comes to mind when you think of the word versatility? Multipurpose tools are versatile. All-around athletes are versatile. But your industrial insulation? 

Something that's versatile can be adapted to many uses—and nothing exemplifies that more than a roll of Pyrogel® or Cryogel® flexible aerogel insulation blankets. With their simple roll format, and single product SKU, Pyrogel or Cryogel can be easily adapted to fit a multitude of forms and to meet a wide range of functions.

Versatile insulation, however, means more than just being useful in diverse applications and in nearly any area of your plant. In fact, the biggest advantage of versatile insulation is that it can save you significant time and expense.  Here's how: 

Would you recognize a steam vault if you walked over one?  

If you're like most people, you’re probably not aware that steam vaults exist—until the vault providing process steam or heat to your building requires maintenance.

Network operators devote a significant amount of time and energy to keeping their steam systems running as smoothly and efficiently as possible. If you never notice a steam vault, they've done their job. We have the same objective. If a steam vault insulated with Pyrogel® XTE aerogel blankets goes unnoticed, it means our insulation is doing its job. 

So, how can you tell if steam vault insulation is or isn't working? There's a telltale sign to look for next time you're out and about, and it's as green as the grass you walk on. 

Whether in a university, municipality, hospital or factory complex, district energy steam network operators are united in a constant effort to improve system quality and reliability to consistently provide the capacity to meet customer demands.

Duke University is no exception.

Fresh off a trip to The Land Down Under, we spent a few minutes with Shane Hebert, senior applications engineer at Aspen Aerogels. Shane was in Australia to conduct installation training for an LNG liquefaction project, something that's a mainstay of his job description. Shane has traveled to over 25 countries, visiting end-users, EPC's, and contractors alike to offer training and support, including the best techniques to properly install our flexible aerogel insulation products.

Shane is an expert, no doubt about it. That's why we asked him to reveal his top tips for anyone new to our material—and for seasoned aerogel veterans alike.  

It seems fitting that we exhibited at NACE Corrosion 2017 in New Orleans, a city that's faced so many challenges due to water—one of the key ingredients to the corrosion process.  While corrosion and the prevention of it is a major topic we also recognize the value of resiliency and using Pyrogel aerogel blanket insulation to "keep it dry." 

If you catch a member of our research and development team staring out the window in the middle of the day, they aren't just daydreaming. Chances are, they're hard at work finding ways to use transparent aerogel and flexible aerogel blanket insulation to improve the energy efficiency of windows.

Our team, and others, are putting the superior insulating performance of aerogel to work to make more efficient windows, albeit in different ways.

Let's start with two questions:

1. What's the highest wind speed recorded in the North Sea?
2. And how is Pyrogel® aerogel insulation related to that figure?  

Turnarounds and other maintenance events, both big and small, take lots of planning and preparation. It's an orchestrated event filled with charts, schedules, people, and milestones. So what happens when Mother Nature decides to stir things up with inclement weather?