Product Description
Combustion Engineering, Inc. (CE) supplied a range of high-temperature refractory brick products for use inside the utility and industrial boilers it manufactured and serviced. Among these was a class of high-alumina asbestos-bonded refractory firebrick allegedly specified for the hottest zones of CE utility-boiler fireboxes — the burner walls, arch and roof supports, slag-tap floors of cyclone units, and the throat and quarl assemblies at burner fronts.
High-alumina firebrick, unlike ordinary silica or fireclay brick, was engineered for sustained service above 2,900°F and for resistance to slag attack in coal-fired pulverized-fuel and cyclone boilers. Plaintiffs alleged in publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation that CE’s high-alumina refractory brick incorporated chrysotile asbestos fiber as a binder and reinforcing agent in the brick matrix, in mortar and bedding compounds shipped with the brick, and in the associated insulating-backup courses installed behind the hot-face brick.
Combustion Engineering is a corporate-trust defendant under the 11 U.S.C. § 524(g) bankruptcy-trust system.
Workers Exposed
- Bricklayers and BAC refractory masons cutting, chipping, and laying high-alumina firebrick inside CE boiler fireboxes
- Boilermakers during firebox tear-out, arch replacement, and burner-front reconstruction
- Insulators installing asbestos-bearing backup insulation courses behind the hot-face brick
- Millwrights and maintenance mechanics performing bystander work during refractory overhauls
- Utility plant workers at coal-fired power plants during scheduled and forced-outage brick work