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With today's high fuel costs and environmental concerns, the issue of energy conservation is on the forefront. In industry, energy costs are having an increasingly significant impact on company profits. Chemax TRACIT brand heat transfer cements are used on heat tracing, electric heaters, clamp-on coils, heat exchangers, and other systems where there is a necessity to maintain a consistent heated or cooled temperature. We have been in the heat transfer business for over 56 years and are confident that our products can improve your system's efficiency.
HEAT TRACING
The idea of heat tracing is to keep your process line at a temperature that will enable its contents to flow throughout the entire pipe length when there is no flow through the pipe. Once a flow has been established, the tracing’s job is done until the next no-flow condition.
Most industrial plants use steam for process heating due to its ease of availability. In comparison to electric tracing, which is a constant heat output, low energy source, steam is a constant temperature and a high-energy source.
Although steam tracing is used extensively, it is subject to limitations…
- Pipe temperature is strongly a function of the physical contact that can be maintained between pipe and tracer. Poor initial installation contacts and thermal expansions between tracer tube and pipe wall can make it impossible to accurately predict repeat pipe temperatures.
- Bare steam tracing cannot be controlled to even reasonably close temperature control. Summer to winter ambient temperature variances cause heat loss through the insulation, which induces a seasonal swing in the maintained pipe temperatures.
- Bare steam tracing can have difficulty maintaining pipe temperatures above 160°F (71°C).
- A bare tracer contacts the pipe only intermittently, and the heat transfer path is therefore mostly through the air within the inner air space of the insulation. Air is a good insulator but a poor conductor. Because the heat transfer resistance of the air media is by far the highest heat transfer resistance it is said to be the controlling or limiting heat transfer resistance.
By using Chemax heat-conducting cement, a path of heat transfer is created from the outside wall of the tracer to the pipe wall, thus making faster heat-up time and higher pipe temperatures possible.
Installing a conductive heat path between the tracer and outside pipe wall surface eliminates the air as the limiting or controlling heat transfer resistance. Now more heat is delivered to the inside wall of the pipe than the fluid in the pipe can keep up with. The wall of the pipe directly under the heat transfer cement becomes hotter than the adjacent pipe wall. Heat travels freely through the thick metallic wall of the pipe causing the entire wall of the pipe to begin to heat-up. Now the heat transfer area is increased to the point where the heat transfer rate of the inside fluid can keep up with the high heat transfer from the tracer area and through the heat transfer cement. A tracer with heat transfer cement can effectively heat through a six-inch section of pipe. Experiments have shown that the heat transfer coefficients for bare steam tracers have ranges from 1 to 5 BTU/HR-sq. ft.°F. “U” factors for steam tracers with heat transfer cement are in the range of 40 (BTU/HR-sq FT-°F).
One tracer with Chemax heat transfer cement does the job of 3-4 bare tracers!
Chemax Tracit-300 being applied to a bare tracer on a process pipe.
Mastic after curing, creating a bridge between tracer and process line.
For externally heated and cooled tanks and vessels, the use of heat transfer mastics improves the efficiency of clamp-on coils by over 100%.
Since these cements operate on the principles of conduction, cooling applications benefit from their use as well as heating.
TRACIT CEMENTS:
- Are ready-to-use from the can and are easily applied by hand trowel or mechanical pumps
- Act as a protective barrier to corrosive atmospheres
- Will not burn or support combustion
- Can withstand considerable mechanical shock
- Are very economical approaches to improving the system’s efficiency compared to other methods such as a jacketed system
- Do not require special shipping or handling considerations
Visit our Products page to find the right heat transfer cement for your system!
Click here to read more about how Chemax brand heat transfer cements can save your company money.
Download a Chemax brochure here.
Phone: (800) 804-4596 | Fax: (302) 328-0261 | sales@chemaxcorp.com
Please dial (302) 328-2440 if calling from outside the US
