Product Description
Westinghouse Electric’s marine division allegedly supplied main-propulsion and auxiliary steam turbines to the U.S. Navy and to American merchant shipbuilders across the mid-twentieth century. Plaintiffs alleged in publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation that Westinghouse Marine turbines were assembled and serviced with compressed asbestos sheet gaskets at every high-pressure joint — including the casing horizontal-split, steam-chest interfaces, gland-seal housings, and exhaust-nozzle flanges.
Compressed asbestos sheet (CAS) gaskets were cut to size from bulk stock, dressed to the flange geometry, and torqued between the mating surfaces. Under service temperature and pressure, the gasket material vitrified onto the flange faces. Every overhaul required workers to scrape the hardened, embrittled asbestos residue free of the mating surface — a mechanical scraping operation that generated respirable asbestos fiber concentrations in the immediate breathing zone of anyone bent over the flange.
Workers Exposed
- Machinist’s mates (MM) performing shipboard gland repacks, casing openings, and steam-chest work on Westinghouse Marine turbines.
- Shipyard machinists performing Navy-yard and private-yard depot-level overhauls of Westinghouse Marine turbines during ship availabilities and inactivations.
- Hull technicians (HT) cutting adjacent lagging and structure for access.
- Pipefitters (UA) breaking steam supply and exhaust lines at turbine flange interfaces before and after casing work.
- Millwrights aligning turbine casings and reduction-gear couplings, and re-gasketing associated interfaces.
Bystander exposures in the propulsion or auxiliary space were routine — engine-room ventilation carried released fibers throughout the shared machinery envelope.