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Are there CUI concerns for operating temperatures over 350 degrees F?

Answer
By David Shong | Published: December 18, 2020

Absolutely. Corrosion under insulation (CUI) can be a serious issue for pipes and process equipment covered with thermal insulation. The corrosion range has kind of been established from 100 to 350°F (38 to 177°C) for mild steel, and 350°F is really kind of the upper limit where liquid water can exist before it vaporizes into its gaseous state.

I definitely would not say that only equipment that operates in between that temperature range is subject to CUI. Every piece of equipment in an industrial facility, in my opinion, is subject to CUI because of the high temperature ranges that are often cyclical, which will drop down into the CUI range. And then, also, during maintenance and outages you will see that equipment brought down out of service, and you can see significant amounts of time where it's in that CUI danger range. (Related reading: Third Party Long-Term Testing: CUI & Thermal Results.)

So, definitely, we want to help people understand what that bandwidth is really. Don't think that if you don’t have something operating in that operating condition, then you won't have to worry. CUI can occur at any operating temperature range because of those cyclical and outage conditions.

Figure 1. Pipes covered with thermal insulation.

Figure 1. Pipes covered with thermal insulation. (Source: Kyryl Gorlov/Dreamstime.com)

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Written by David Shong

David Shong

David Shong has spent his entire career in the construction materials industry and developed an early passion for insulation. He has worked in the industrial insulation field since 2014.

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