"The Lowdown on Insulation," Feature Article, April 2008

the lowdown on insulation

An inter-industry program creates an engineer's guide to insulating mechanical systems.

A government-industry coalition has launched a Web site to guide engineers making decisions about insulation for mechanical systems, including those in factories, power and processing plants, and commercial buildings. The site is called the Mechanical Insulation Design Guide and is part of a wider online initiative, the Whole Building Design Guide, an information service developed under the auspices of the National Institute of Building Sciences.

The Mechanical Insulation Design Guide was spearheaded by NIBS and the National Insulation Association, with support from organizations as diverse as ASHRAE, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Army Corps of Engineers.

According to the guide's introduction, "Insulation is applied but rarely engineered. With the best intentions, but not necessarily with thorough knowledge, many specifications have evolved over the years primarily based upon modification of old documents."

The Web site is intended to provide the knowledge needed for the design, specification, installation, and maintenance of insulation for commercial systems. The systems range from pipelines and industrial boilers to air conditioning ductwork.

A new Web site aims to provide engineering knowledge for the design, specification, installation, and maintenance of insulation for commercial systems.

The material is intended for engineers who are not specialists in working with insulation. According to Ron King, a consultant to the National Insulation Association, "Several excellent guide specifications, handbooks, standards, and practices have been available for years. The effective use of those resources, however, is based on the premise that the user has access to them and has some level of knowledge about mechanical insulation. That assumption may not always be correct."

The guide says that insulation serves many purposes. Among them are energy conservation, worker safety, and process control. The text describes various types of insulation and goes into some detail on a number of subjects. For example, a section on condensation control includes a table of average humidity data for major U.S. cities. The guide also offers examples of design problems.

Design tools include graphs, tables, and formulas for computing insulation requirements. The site has several online calculators—one that will compute heat flow, for instance, and another for determining optimum thickness of insulation for various needs. A section on resources includes links to various relevant standards.

The National Institute of Building Sciences was formed by the U.S. Housing and Community Development Act of 1974. It describes itself as "a public/private partnership to enable findings on technical, building-related matters to be used effectively to improve government, commerce, and industry."

The National Insulation Association is a trade association representing the mechanical and specialty insulation industry.

The guide developed from a suggestion by a manager in the Buildings Technology Program in the U.S. Department of Energy. He got Earle Kennett, a vice president at NIBS, together with King of the National Insulation Association so the two organizations could explore the use of mechanical insulation in industry and in commercial buildings as a means to conserve energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The collaboration led to the formation of a group called the National Mechanical Insulation Committee. Its members, representatives of government agencies and private organizations, developed the Web site. Funding came from the government through the National Institute of Building Sciences and from industry through NIA's Foundation for Education, Training, and Industry Advancement.

According to King, the Mechanical Insulation Design Guide was developed over two years with contributions from more than 80 sources, including organizations, manufacturers, fabricators, and contractors.

There is a link to the Mechanical Insulation Design Guide on the Whole Building Design Guide home page, www.wbdg.org.