GLAPOR put also his first steps into the industrial insulation world where a larger thickness is not an issue. Although this world is very well closed, GLAPOR is invited to offer for the thermal insulation of tank bottoms.

For that reason, Fraunhofer IBP in Stuttgart has measured the thermal conductivity between -150°C and 250°C on a 1000 kPa foam. Comparison with classic cellular glass shows that about 25% more thickness is needed for the same mechanical stability.

Tank bottom insulation refers to the thermal insulation under the steel tank, which has to carry the weight of the cold liquid. In the case of liquid natural gas, we speak about -162°C. The better the thermal insulation of the tank, the less liquid will evaporate. In most cases, the cellular glass under the ring of the tank has to carry the load of the moving liquid during an earth quake. For that reason, compressive strengths up to 2400 kPa are some times requested.

For your information, we add the technical report from Fraunhofer with the equation, which describes the thermal conductivity in function of the temperature.

It is still unbelievable that the oldest man made hard foam, cellular glass has still a limited market penetration. And the few who are familiar with cellular glass have the image of very expensive material, reserved for the happy few. BELGLAS is started 5 years ago with the following target: “It is our mission to lower the prices to make cellular glass available for a larger group of people“.

In the mean time, the prices have lowered substantially but it is still not well known. For that reason, we have accepted an invitation for a seminar for students at the university of Bayreuth.

By that occasion, GLAPOR will also disclose its first steps on the acoustical market.

We all know Wikipedia and it is used a lot in this blog. Everybody is able to write a contribution to this on line encyclopdia and to consult it free of charge. There is a limited peer review to avoid that complete nonsense would be published. I consider it as the best contributing social medium and I can “loose” a lot of time by just checking the main page.

There are also other projects in the same format like wikibooks, wikispecies, wiktionary, … . They are all based on the same open source software of Mediawiki.

This software is written in PHP and works together with a (open source) database. But is less known that this software can run on your personal or company server where you can develop your own documentation system. Indeed, a PC under Linux can run this software for your private documentation system at home or in the company. BELGLAS can assist you in starting such a documentation system where each document gets its own comments in order to find it when you need it (when you already forgot you made it). The software is free of charge like all open source.