Outside of its typical advantages like retaining heat and protecting instruments from external elements, insulation also helps protect personnel from potentially dangerous heat emitted from internal components—leaving the ambient environment stable and safe.
Soft insulation, a subcategory to industrial insulation, also has unique advantages like natural flexibility. This allows soft insulation to fit every bend, curve, or loop your instrument’s shape may have. One of the most important features is its tool-less design—and this benefit may be greater than you think.
Soft insulation that has a tool-less design (no tools required to install or remove) offers the following benefits:
- Accessibility: Insulation that requires tools to gain access to the instrument creates unnecessary obstacles for your staff to perform routine maintenance like inspects or repairs. This is especially true if your instrument is irregularly shaped. A tool-less design simplifies accessing your instrument.
- Speed: With our tool-less design our insulation blankets can be quickly and easily removed from an instrument in under 5 minutes. This is advantageous when frequent access to the machinery and instruments beneath is necessary.
- Design cost reduction: SUM Ltd believes in building the best product possible, backed by strong research and applying findings directly to our products. Sometimes, however, the simplest solutions are the best. Reducing complexities lowers the cost to produce a single insulation blanket. These savings are then passed on to our customers.
Fastening Systems
- Velcro: One of the quickest methods of fastening an insulation blanket to your instrument. However, this fastening method only works with temperatures up to 93°C or 200°F. In some cases, Velcro may also be used as a sacrificial material during first installation then using lacing hooks or straps as a sturdier fastener.
- Stainless Steel Lacing Wire with Rivets: If you require a rugged fastening system to withstand high heat temperatures, stainless steel lacing wires with rivets can withstand temperatures of up to 1200°F/649°C.
- Teflon Straps with D-Rings: Teflon straps offer quick installation and removal and can sustain higher temperatures of up to 550°F or 288°C.
Safety Gear
Despite its simplicity, you should always wear personal protective equipment (PPE) when installing insulation blankets. Wearing PPE can protect yourself from any unsafe conditions such as heat, steam, chemicals, or hot surfaces. Consider wearing work gloves as part of your safety gear to help prevent insulation from slipping out of your hands as you wrap it around your instrument.
Ready to get started?
At SUM Ltd, we pride ourselves on being meticulous with every blanket we build, from design to manufacturing. We believe in measuring twice and cutting once, so you can rest assured that your new blanket will match to protect your instruments perfectly. Ready to get started on building your custom industrial insulation blanket for your instrument? Contact us today to discuss your unique instrumentation protection needs.