Insulated Composite Panels for Challenging Environments

By Blake Heger, VP, Marketing & Sales Operations, Enduro Composites, a part of Creative Composites Group

Insulated metal panels (IMPs) have been an essential building material for over 50 years. These multi-layered wall and roofing panels provide a barrier against the elements and improve energy efficiency while providing operational and installation cost savings versus conventional materials.

Insulated composite panels (ICPs) offer even faster installation, reducing downtime and on-site labor duration, which reduces short and long-term financial setbacks. Some ICPs are offered in an aliphatic-based resin to satisfy halogen-free requirements. And the value of ICPs really shines in highly corrosive environments like food and beverage production buildings, mining, fertilizer, salt, pulp and paper processing, and more.

What are ICPs?

Insulated composite panels are a nonmetallic alternative to IMPs for use on walls or roofs. ICPs utilize fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) panels for the exterior and interior cladding. Like IMPs, they offer weather-tight structural strength and are prefabricated to allow for quicker installation than traditional framing, insulation, and cladding. They also sandwich their insulation between interior and exterior FRP panels.

FRP is an engineered composite material made of reinforcement fibers, polymer resin (the matrix), and additives to create an extremely strong, durable material that meets desired performance specifications. Like other composites and polymers, FRP is inherently corrosion resistant and tends to have a lower surface energy less prone to strong adhesion with foreign substances. It is also much less thermally conductive than metals. Because of its physical properties, FRP requires much less maintenance over its often-longer service life than metal and is orders of magnitude lighter than metals and thus easier and safer to transport, install, and maintain.

ICPs Can Cut Downtime and Elevate Safety

Composites offer some distinctive advantages over metals that translate to faster, safer, and fewer installations. The first is weight. 

Apples to apples, composite building materials are often lighter than their metal equivalents. On average, IMP panels are three feet wide and weigh nominally 75 pounds. Once lifted and on the move, the workers must take care not to strike anything at the building site with the IMPs’ sharp edges, including other workers and themselves. In addition, if scratched or nicked, the metal exterior or interior exterior can remove any coating applied to the exterior. This increases the likelihood of expedited deterioration. 

ICPs offer speed and safety. ICP panels are a standard four feet wide while nominally weighing 80 pounds. This results in 33 percent fewer panels with negligible weight difference per panel. This means that, whether installing the panels into a new building or retrofitting them into an existing one, the amount of time and bodies needed to move each single panel is reduced by approximately a third. The edges of FRP panels are also typically less sharp than metal plus the FRP exterior and interior cladding’s corrosion resistant characteristics are not impacted by scratches or nicks. 

Many facilities that require insulated panels are high production, so every minute lost is very expensive, sometimes to the tune of over $100,000 per hour. A longer panel installation time requires a longer shutdown. Add this to the additional laborers needed and the result is spending lots of money. With ICP, owners can begin or resume operations at a minimum 33 percent quicker, minimizing losses.

ICPs offer safety benefits beyond the everyday. In the terrible event of fire, many types of insulated panels can present risks of carcinogens as the insulation burns. The insulation includes flame-retardant halogens like bromine to earn a flame-spread rating. When burnt, however, these halogens hydrolyze and, when mixed with the water in the air and inhaled, people can respirate bromic acid. 

For added safety or for enclosed spaces that are hard to exit quickly, some manufacturers are beginning to produce IMPs and ICPs produced with halogen-free materials. Enduro’s Tuff Span ICPs are currently the only non-metallic fiberglass sandwich panel available in a halogen-free option for additional safety. 

ICPs Thrive in Challenging Environments

Certain chemicals necessary to industries like mining, fertilizer, salt, and pulp and paper processing are highly corrosive. In these environments, IMPs exposed to the corrosive effects of industrial-grade hydrogen peroxide, chlorine dioxide, sodium hypochlorite (bleach), and other chlorides can succumb in a matter of years and need replacing. Even in facilities where corrosive chemicals are less common, consistently wet conditions like high humidity areas or geographies prone to heavy rains can quickly corrode IMPs. 

Because these panels are essential to weatherproofing a facility, corroded panels are a business risk and must be repaired or replaced. This begins the entire laborious, expensive installation process over again. The facility must absorb production losses during an installation that may take double the time using field-assembled insulation systems instead of ICPs.

Or businesses can avoid this altogether: ICPs offer a corrosion-resistant alternative to metal and have a long, nearly maintenance-free service life. This total cost of ownership is thus much lower than consistently replacing IMPs, even without considering installation savings.

In addition to corrosion resistance, ICPs bring many advantages to both standard and challenging environments. ICPs are scalable and interact well with other materials. ICPs from some manufacturers are available in vinyl ester or iso-polyester and are UL-listed and FM-approved for both exterior and interior building panels, for use as exterior, single-skin cladding or for use as liner panels. All composite panels are corrosion-resistant, though different ICP manufacturers use different reinforcing content and resin systems that may add further like increased UV resistance. 

ICPs for a Long Service Life

Heavy, corrosion-prone IMPs are not the only choice for prefabricated insulated paneling. ICPs are a compelling alternative, offering: 

• An excellent total cost of ownership by reducing or eliminating maintenance, even in very wet or corrosive environments. 
• A faster, safer and ultimately less costly installation process due to their modular design, light weight and larger size. 
• An energy-efficient and long service life.

Conventional IMPs are still a strong choice in many cases. But in corrosive environments, the costs of relying on tradition can be high. The durability and efficiency of ICPs meet the challenges of modern manufacturing.

Blake Heger is a subject matter expert on premium fiberglass building products predominantly supporting the industrial, mining, and infrastructure markets.  Blake is passionate about providing architects, engineers, contractors and plant personnel with technical and commercial support on their building products needs. Since joining Enduro in 2011, Blake has held various sales manager roles primarily in Enduro Composites’ Building Products group. Blake’s current role is VP of Marketing and Sales Operations with emphasis on product innovation and improving the market position of Enduro’s brand and product lines.