Insulation-Metal Interaction Outlook for Thermally Insulated Systems - A New Perspective for Insulation Driven Stress Cracks and CUI

Abstract Thermal insulations are used for the heat conservation in the process equipment, pipelines and piping circuits. This paper reports the insulation-metal interaction implications for wet insulation with and without contact-free insulation systems. As the moisture at the wet insulation-metal interface is subjected to flashing (from pipe’s heat), it may trigger the localized stress. This pioneering study investigates the mechanical implications of flashing moisture using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling. In addition to CFD modelling, an experimental set up based on ASTM G189-07 was deployed to simulate the insulation-metal interaction for candidate insulation designs. It then addresses the implications of wet insulation-metal interaction on effective CUI temperature range as well as thermal profile as the pipe metal was subjected to quenching from the water film at the insulation-metal interface. In addition to understanding mechanical aspects of insulation driven stress cracking, this work enables understanding of effective temperature regimes for CUI.