HOLZ’s team designs expansion joints to protect from natural disasters

HOLZ supplied special expansion joints for two Florida gas turbines to prevent hurricane damage.

One of the more chaotic, consequential events that can damage a company’s standing is a natural disaster, like a hurricane or earthquake. Not only do these forces of nature pose safety hazards to workers, they can also damage property extensively and shut down production for an undetermined time. HOLZ Rubber Company – whose industrial expansion joints are available in Canada via Northern Industrial Supply Company (NISCO) – is aware of this, and that is why it manufactures products to prevent hurricane damage, such as gas turbine expansion joints.

The HOLZ team often works closely with its customers to provide the best solution available for their respective applications. In one case, several years ago, the company helped the makers of two new gas turbines in southern Florida protect these new structures from storm damage.

With specialty molded corners

Florida’s climate is more susceptible to hurricanes than that of any other U.S. state; its history encompasses more than 500 tropical or subtropical cyclones, killing thousands of people and resulting in billions of dollars in damage. So the people behind these two gas-turbine construction projects had good reason to be concerned.

To operate properly, gas turbines need to intake a great deal of air. The turbine draws air into a filter house and passes it through a series of cleaning filters; the air then passes through a silencer section that reduces the noise level before the air goes into a turbine inlet. To absorb any thermal and mechanical movements associated with large equipment, air inlets need special turbine expansion joints, which are also designed to absorb a large volume of lateral, or shear, movement during such natural phenomena as high winds, hurricanes, and earthquakes.

The people behind these projects turned to HOLZ, which recommended its own gas turbine expansion joints for the air inlets in the new structures. These joints required specialty molded corners in order to accommodate any large lateral movements that a typical Florida hurricane could cause.

Several years later, the owners of these turbines still feel secure that HOLZ joints – available from NISCO – are preventing storm damage.

To learn more, contact NISCO.

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