How does Super Therm Insulation Coating work on Metal Structures?
Why is the steel Casino Boat only insulated with SUPER THERM®? And does it work during winter time?
Answer to this question about SUPER THERM working on metal structures as the only insulation:
It took some time to work with the engineers on the Casino boat that Super Therm would work. Here is how it worked out:
1. Everyone understands the idea SUPER THERM® works on the exterior to block and reflect heat. The points J.E. had to communicate was that heat is not simply heat. This is why white paint cannot work nor can the simple “reflective” coatings in the market. The heat is UV, Short Wave Radiation (Visual light) and Long Wave Radiation (Infrared). SUPER THERM® is designed to block all three of these radiations to prevent “HEAT LOAD” onto the surface that then becomes heat transfer or conduction. SUPER THERM® blocks the initial heat load down from 100% to 4%. This reduces the amount of heat “available” for transfer and therefore, we do effect “conduction” without having to have thickness that traditional insulation requires to slow the heat down but not block it.
2. The interior was the challenge. SUPER THERM® applied to the interior to hold the heat in during the winter months was not understood at all in the beginning. How this was satisfied and proven was that the emissivity of the SUPER THERM® is tested at 91%. What does this mean? This means that the heat inside the boat is not radiation and therefore no reflection of radiation waves. The heat inside the boat is convection which is the heated air blowing around. This heat normally comes in contact with the hull of the boat, loads into the surface of the metal hull, and they transfers to the exterior and is lost through conduction because it loaded from the interior and transferred to the exterior. When fibreglass was used, the fibreglass did what it was designed to do – it absorbed and loaded the heat. Then after it was fully loaded, this allowed this heat to load into the hull surface and be lost through transfer to the exterior at the same rate it would normally be lost. After the fibreglass is fully loaded, it transfers the heat at an equal pace through itself.
What SUPER THERM® does as a closed thin film multi-ceramic blend is without the density to absorb, load and hold heat, the heat from the convection lays on the surface of the SUPER THERM® film and begins to load into the surface as normal. Since the ceramics do not have the density to absorb and hold heat, the heat is repelled off the surface back into the room of the boat. SUPER THERM® also has a low permeability rating of between 4 and 8. This means air and moisture will not easily permeate through the coating film. This emittance of heat off the surface back into the room is a measurement of emissivity and is measured through testing. SUPER THERM® emits this heat back off it’s surface at a 91% rate.
The engineers also believed it was not working because the hull surface was not warm to the touch and therefore the SUPER THERM® was not working. If SUPER THERM® was absorbing and holding heat, the surface would feel warm, because it rejects the heat load at a 91% rate, the surface will never feel warm because it throws it off back into the room. This physics made sense and was understood.
After all was said, then the engineers for the boat said that the fibreglass loaded with warm air and when it touches the cold hull of the boat, it cools, drops out the moisture and causes a tremendous condensation problem so much that they had to build a drain catch to channel the water running down the interior side of the hull from the fibreglass. This simply means that the fibreglass was wet and not working at all. Everyone agreed and gave up on trying to defend the fibreglass and begin to accept the SUPER THERM® solution.
SUPER THERM® has stopped all condensation that was happening on the interior of the hull of the boat. This was a major problem with the fibreglass and not it does not happen. This was additional proof that SUPER THERM® did not allow the warm moist air to stay on the cool hull surface long enough to cool and drop out it’s moisture to have a condensation problem.
To summarise: Exterior: SUPER THERM® blocks and reflects 96.1% of the solar radiation heat from ever loading into the surface and therefore only allowing 4% to transfer through to the cool side or interior during the summer.
Interior: SUPER THERM® is tested and proven to repel 91% of the convective heat from being absorbed into the surface and transferred to the exterior to be lost during the winter. This causes the interior room temperature to be stable and easy to control.
A point about the boat needs to be realised also, they do have a HVAC (heating and air conditioning) system operating inside the boat to control relative humidity from all the body heat and humidity. This helps in keeping relative humidity down in this environment so that the air is cleaner and dryer inside the boat atmosphere. Holding relative humidity down is important in controlling insulation effect. It did not help fibreglass because it condensated anyway, became wet and did not work.
To answer the question of “does SUPER THERM® coated on the exterior and interior of containers for housing or metal structures to do the insulation and control the temperatures and conditions”, A BIG YES!!!!
A group in the United States built housing out of used shipping containers and use only SUPER THERM® to insulate and they are working great.
Even the Department of Energy representative and testing authority tested SUPER THERM® on containers to do a full report on it’s ability to insulate. It’s been proven that it works extremely well for insulating containers.
