Product Description

Babcock & Wilcox Company (B&W) was the dominant U.S. supplier of utility-scale watertube boilers to the American electric power industry from the 1940s through the late 1970s. B&W-supplied utility-boiler jacket insulation — the layered asbestos-bearing insulation system applied to the outside of the boiler casing beneath the visible outer sheet-metal lagging — was a standard element of B&W boiler construction and refurbishment throughout the asbestos era.

Plaintiffs alleged in publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation that B&W utility-boiler jacket insulation systems included:

  • Asbestos millboard cut and fitted against the boiler casing plate
  • Asbestos blanket insulation wrapped over drums, headers, and penthouse enclosures
  • Asbestos sheet and paper insulation used as a facing layer beneath outer sheet-metal lagging
  • Asbestos cement (mud) troweled onto irregular geometry — burner throats, soot-blower penetrations, buckstay attachments
  • Asbestos rope and gasket packing at access-door frames and observation ports

The jacket system was applied across the boiler exterior — the casing plate, the penthouse, the drum-cover enclosure, the burner-front wall, the economizer and air-heater side walls, and the ducting into the induced-draft-fan inlet. Utility-boiler jacket insulation was disturbed at every planned major outage, during buckstay repairs, and during any casing-plate replacement.

Babcock & Wilcox has been named as a Manufacturer Defendant in publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation.

Workers Exposed

  • Insulators (HFIAW Locals) applying and removing asbestos millboard, blanket, sheet, and mud insulation on B&W boiler exteriors
  • Boilermakers cutting through jacket insulation to reach casing plate, buckstays, and tube penetrations
  • Sheet metal workers (SMART) fabricating and installing the outer lagging over asbestos-bearing insulation
  • Utility maintenance mechanics and outage crews during planned and forced outages
  • Bystander trades working alongside insulation and re-lagging crews in the boiler house

Jacket-insulation rip-out during major outages was among the highest fiber-release activities on utility boiler decks — plaintiffs allege that disturbing decades-old asbestos millboard and mud generated substantial respirable-fiber exposure to insulator crews and to adjacent trades working in the boiler house.