Central steam plant on the US Gulf Coast.
Persistently wet cal-sil on a long steam header caused steam quality to collapse every time it rained. A thin Pyrogel® overwrap acted as a non-return valve for water — drying out the underlying system and restoring steam supply.
Steam quality collapsed every time it rained.
Cal-sil wicks moisture; on the Gulf Coast it stayed wet. Pressure dips during rain were severe enough that the facility maintained a weather watch.
- Persistently wet calcium silicate. Cal-sil absorbed and held moisture from rainfall.
- Steam pressure dips during rain. Forced supply pressure below process requirements.
- Weather watch required. Site maintained a protocol to manage steam sheds during storms.
Thin Pyrogel® overwrap as a non-return valve for liquid water.
A 5–10 mm Pyrogel® (Regenawrap) layer was wrapped over the existing cal-sil; the system dried out and recovered original performance — and then exceeded it.
- Pyrogel® overwrap installed live. No outage required to apply over the existing system.
- Acts as a non-return valve for water. Keeps moisture out while letting trapped water vapor escape.
- Underlying cal-sil dried and recovered. Original fibrous insulation returned to spec performance.
- Net better than original. Combined Pyrogel® + cal-sil out-performed the original cal-sil-only baseline.
Site can now focus on operation, not weather.
Pyrogel® overwrap recovered millions of dollars of margin that had previously been lost to weather-driven steam-quality collapse. The site team is no longer running a weather watch protocol on this header.
Steam quality collapsing in the rain?
Pyrogel® overwrap restores existing systems in service — Aspen can survey your wet-insulation hot spots.