Piping Insulation 1

[thalon]

When designing piping hangers, how do you account for insulation?
Where would I find the density of Mineral Wool, or Calcium Silicate insulation?

Your help is greatly appriciated.

 

[stanier]

If the pipe is insulated itis subjected to thermal strain. The use of hangars means you have little control over the movement of the pipe between hot and cold conditions.

That said hangars are used in some industries where standards are lower. The hangar is generally fitted directly to the pipe and the insulation stops and starts either side. Where insulation is to be continuous sometimes solid split blocks are used which withstand the loads. These may be an epoxy impregnated timber or ceramic. Try the support suppliers. They will have some proprietary device. This may be fabricated from steel but offer a small path for the heat conduction.

When insulated pipes are support from beneath it is convention to use a pipe shoe. see

http://www.lisega.de

for details.

 

[thalon]

I am supporting from below, but in an effort to check some loads, I was looking for the weight to use for insulation.

 

[Zapster]

http://www.jm.com/insulation/performance_materials/pei.htm

 

[stanier]

From the AFT Fathom fluid flow software Insulation Database in lbm/ft^3

Calcium Silicate 16
Fibreglass 5.63
Foamglas 7.5
Mineral Wool 11.7
Perlite 12
Polyurethane 2

 

[thalon]

Thank you stanier. That is just what I was looking for.

 

[stanier]

Thalon,

Glad I could help.

I use Algor's Pipepak for doing static and dynamic load analysis of piping systems. It is not as costly as other software to license. I even use it for cold water lines as it is quick to build a model. It can import models from Autocad etc but I find I can model a piping systems very quickly with the spreadsheet entry. It also has the standard database of insulation built in.