Product Description

Plaintiffs alleged in publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation that Nordberg Manufacturing Company of Milwaukee — a heavy-machinery builder known for large-bore, slow-speed radial two-stroke diesel engines and vertical two-stroke diesels used in municipal powerhouses, mining hoists, pump stations, and Navy auxiliary installations — assembled and repeatedly overhauled its diesel prime movers using asbestos-containing gaskets, packing, and sealing components at every hot-side and pressurized joint.

The Nordberg radial diesel was a distinctive slow-speed, high-torque design used in municipal electric-generation powerhouses, ore-mine hoist installations, waterworks pump stations, and Navy shore-side and auxiliary applications from the 1920s into the 1970s. Litigation records describe alleged chrysotile-bearing gasket material at the cylinder head-to-liner joints, at the exhaust manifold and exhaust-collector flanges, at the air-receiver and scavenge-air handhole covers, at the turbo-blower housing mounting flanges on turbocharged variants, and at jacket-water and lube-oil piping unions serving the engine.

Because Nordberg engines were slow-speed, large-bore prime movers running continuously in baseload service, their gaskets allegedly baked onto the mating surfaces over long service intervals. Powerhouse operators, enginemen, and shipyard mechanics performing scheduled overhauls allegedly scraped and wire-wheeled hardened gasket residue off large-diameter flanges in confined machinery-space conditions.

Workers Exposed

  • Powerhouse operators and diesel plant engineers at municipal electric utilities, mining operations, and waterworks running Nordberg radial or vertical two-stroke prime movers
  • Navy enginemen (EN) and motor machinist’s mates (MoMM) at shore-side installations and aboard auxiliaries equipped with Nordberg engines
  • Shipyard and industrial-plant diesel mechanics performing depot-level Nordberg overhauls
  • Insulators and pipefitters stripping and reapplying asbestos lagging on Nordberg exhaust piping and jacket-water headers during outages