You may recall our recent email newsletter, blog, and
LinkedIn/Facebook postings of our Technical Bulletin 1128 “MECHANICAL
INSULATION IN TYPICAL REFRIGERATION APPLICATIONS”.
Responses to our Bulletin have been very positive, and our
friends have made some good suggestions/clarifications that we thought we
should consolidate and send along.
Listed below are comments from a few Followers along with our response to each. Thank you to each and every one who responded. Your questions and comments are appreciated.
·
The Bulletin states that EPS and XPS melt at
165°F and that is not technically correct. We should have rather said they
begin to “soften” at 165F. Yet we believe the ultimate conclusion remains the
same - - that the maximum service temperature is generally 165°F
for both EPS and XPS.
·
The Bulletin’s data on XPS was based on public
data then available on the major manufacturer’s website. We overlooked
data from another XPS manufacturer that more recently entered the XPS billet
market. This newer manufacturer creates billets by gluing together sheets of
XPS. These billets have a stated Water Absorption (WA) of 1.0% versus the
0.5% presented in the Bulletin, and the actual range for WA can be from 0.3% to
1%.
·
The new manufacturer of XPS also states R value
is 5.0, but the manufacturer does not indicate (on information available to us)
whether this is an “aged” value or an “initial”. The 3.9R value stated in
the Bulletin is from the supplier of XPS billets that are a continuously
extruded material, and the 3.9R is presented as an aged value per ASTM
procedures.
·
Based
on some test results just received for Phenolic, we should update its WVT
to 3.3 perm-in and its WA to 0.9% by volume. In the Bulletin’s Table 2
(Water Vapor Transmission for Different Insulants) this would place it after
expanded polystyrene and above Trymer 2000XP polyisocyanurate when sorted by
WVT. Note that the Phenolic properties still meet the ASTM C1126
standards for both WVT and WA.
Dyplast’s Technical Bulletin has been updated and is
available at: http://www.dyplastproducts.com/Customer_Bulletins/TECHNICAL_BULLETIN_1128.pdf.
As always, Dyplast welcomes comments and suggestions and strives
to present accurate information useful to the industry.
