Industrial Floor Treat Ment

8/14/2019 Industrial Floor Treat Ment

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INFORMATION EXCHANGE

This is very crucial part of any industrial flooring project. Below discussedpoints should be communicated to do successful project to supplier,

applicator.

a) Location and address of the site

b) Name of the application area

c) Area in SQFT or SQMT

d) Access to the site

e) Nature and age of the substrate

f) Availability of electricity , location and type of electric point

g) Storage facility

h) Application temperature

i) Type of joints in the floor

j) Working schedule ( i.e day or night )

k) Project duration

l) System

m)Water availability

n) Accommodation Facility

o) Availability of light

p) Ventilation

For details please refer our Floor Selection Criteria

INDUSTRIAL FLOOR TREAT MENT

Floor in the industry and commerce is not just part of a structure.

Industrial floor is heavily exposed to stress. It is exposed to several

types of industrial chemicals .It needs to meet variety of operational

requirements like crack bridging, slip resistance, abrasion resistance,

impact-load resistance, compression resistance, traffic resistance, non-

flammability, conductivity, aesthetics, easy to clean, ease of


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maintenance, long life etc. There are many more expectations from

specific industrial flooring.

Determining the correct industrial flooring system

Basically there are two factors

A) Operational requirements

B) Analysis of surface condition

A)Operational requirements

1) Mechanical exposureMainly these three forces (abrasion, compression and impact) operate in some

cases as a combination.

1. Abrasion Resistance- Finish of the topping should be smooth relatively.

Binder and aggregate of the system should have high degree of

toughness.

2. Compression Resistance Topping of the system should have

appropriate thickness and adequate compressive strength.

3. Impact Resistance- Flatness and leave have to be considered.

2) Chemical attack

Waste management area, laboratory or clinical area, etc are exposed to

chemical regularly or occasionally. Generally industrial floor exposed to

grease, soluble salts, alkalis, acids, fuels, solvents, cleaning agents etc.

Analysis of operation condition depends on these factors like

1. Time of contact

2. Temperature

3. Type of chemicals

3) Temperature effect

Temperature in cold stores, kitchens, dairies etc is different as compare to

normal. Here temperature plays an important roll for the durability of the floor.

4)Traffic

Normally there are three types of traffic


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1. Light Duty where floors are subject to normal pedestrian traffic and

light weight, non-metallic wheeled trolleys.

2. Medium Duty where the floors are subject to pedestrian / vehicular / or

otherwise which fall between light and heavy service condition

3. Heavy Duty where the floors are subjected to high density pedestrian /

vehicular traffic and a high degree of moving loads.

5) Vehicular traffic is essentially of two types:

1. Trolleys and fork lift trucks with small wheels and solid tyres.

2. Heavy vehicles with pneumatic tyres.

Small, hard wheels like the metallic or nylon versions in use exert the most

severe stresses; and in certain cases the point load is greatly enhanced. As

commonly experienced, small metallic wheels can cause severe damage to

the floor, it should be considered to change these wheels to rubber / nylon.

6) Crack-Bridging

Tensile stresses leads to cracking in concrete. Crack-Bridging flooring systems

are used if cracks in concrete would damage the function of the topping or

even endanger the environment.

Below mentioned cracks-width are consider to be harmless

External areas:- Crack width max 0.25mm

Internal areas:- Crack width max 0.40 mm

If cracks are dead, then those cracks could be repaired. If cracks are live-cracks and already exceeds above limit, then floor should be treated with

elastomeric flooring system.

6) Conductivity

Normally polymers are non-conductive, so due to friction with topping,

electron gets generated and stored in the polymer as static electricity or static

charges .Irrespective to thickness of topping, resistance to the earth is


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always more than 1010 and 1012 to 1013 is usual. This has to bring down

below 109 using conductive filler in topping system.

107 1010 1013

Resistance to earth in

In different way, these static charges disturb productivitya) Static Charges attract contaminants to small plastic parts prior to

packaging and disturb the quality.

Friction causes static charge generation which leads to electric shocks.

Static charges damage sensitive electronic devices

Static charges attract dirt which is not recommended in clean room

environment.

8) Hygiene

Today clean-room environment requirement is growing at increasingly high

rate. Clean-Room includes a very wide range of specifications which are

related to decontamination. Industries like pharmaceuticals, food, beverage,

etc require sterile, clean room environment. Floor topping should be joint-less

and resistance to various cleaning systems.

9) Fire ResistanceThere are regulations for fire resistance in area like underground car park

decks, explosive stores, area where flammable items are handled. The fire risk

from liquid polymers is often overrated, film thickness 0.5 mm on non-

flammable substrate is considered insignificant in terms of their propagation

properties. Different counties have different standards for fire resistance

regulation.

Example Fire resistance to Austrian Standards


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Under Austrian standard B-3000 , Part 1- Fire properties of construction

materials and components (under preparation )-a material is considered to be

barely flammable if the ignited sample has an undestroyed residual length of

at least 40 cm up to the top edge after any afterburning (1 min max ) or

afterglow (5 mins. Max)

10) Slip ResistanceThe grip is basically the effect of the surface roughness on the friction

resistance interacting with tyre or similar object. Grip is very much affected by

level of surface roughness. Slip resistance of industrial floors is mainly

affected by the roughness and structure of the surface. There are few ways of

increasing anti-skid property of topping, like- using texture roller, by sand

broadcasting, by changing filler specification etc. There is some disadvantage

of anti-skid flooring, likecontamination, cleaning problem etc. This type of

floor is required in the working area where risk of skidding and leading to an

accident is high.

11) Designed Surface (Topping)

This is the additional benefit. Trend of using designed- floor is growing as per

the functional requirement of industrial flooring, It could be in pharmaceutical,

food, automotive, front office etc. There are few way to design the topping ,

among those ,few are a) using colored filler b) using texture roller c) by

broadcasting of silicon carbide aggregate, quartz sand, colored PVA chips,

sharp sand etc. In all the work places gloss finish is not suitable because of

high level of light reflection. By using matt sealer gloss level could be reduced.

12) Coving

Joint of wall and floor always creates right angle and it accumulates dust.

Only coving can solve the problem.

13) Environmental Condition


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This has to be considered other wise problem like poor adhesion, inadequate

curing,

irregular surface, void formation etc may arise.

13)Temperature

Ambient temperature (air temperature), substrate temperature and material

temperature these three temperatures have to be measured before everyapplication and verify several times during application. Increase in the

substrate temperature above the minimum application temperature may

result into

a) Reduction in the reaction time

b) Better and quicker ventilation

c) Improved wetting of the substrate.

Temperature plays an important for reactive resin based floor-treatment

material for curing and strength gaining. If ambient temperature falls below

100C, then application should not be carried out. If ambient temperature is

very high, then pot life of material will come-down and execution will be

difficult.

14) Moisture

Basically there are two type of Moisture

i) Substrate moisture (water in liquid form)

ii) Atmospheric humidity (water vapor).

i) Substrate Moisture

By using moisture meter, substrate moisture can be measured. For normalepoxy application, substrate moisture level should be less then 4%. Osmosis

phenomena occurs at more than 4% moisture level.

ii)Atmospheric humidity

Relative atmospheric humidity is the standard unit of measurement for the

water content of the air and is expressed as.


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Relative atmospheric humidity = (volume of water vapor present in the

atmosphere)

(Saturation point at given temperature).

As the temperature rises, the relative humidity falls if moisture is neither

added to nor taken from that volume of air . For industrial flooring Relative

Humidity should not exceeded 75% RH.

iii) The dew point

The temperature at which the saturation moisture (100% RH) of the air is

reached called dew point. If the temperature falls below the dew point ,

condensation is formed .

It is very important to check the substrate and air temperature. From these

two we can calculate the dew point .For Flooring application , the substrate

temperature must be at least 30 C above the dew point .In the dew point range

, problem like osmotic bubbles, adhesion

Problem and others may occur. Dew point can be prevented by careful

monitoring of the climatic condition.

Example

Ambient temperature T(amb) = 150 C

Relative Humidity RH = 90%

From the Table

Dew point temperature : +13.30 C

Substrate temperature T(sub): 120 C

We require (Substrate temperature dew point) 30 C

But actual condition

( +13.30 C - 120 C) = 1.30 C

Decision flooring application is not possible.

Action

We need to increase the ambient temperature and influence the relative

humidity by ventilation (by hot air equipment)

15)Analysis of surface condition


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It is very important part of industrial flooring. Analysis of surface condition is

important to determine the correct substrate preparation for successful

flooring system. Always surface should be dry, sound, clean and free from

contaminants.

17) Moisture content

For normal epoxy resin, moisture content of the substrate should be less then

4%. There are water based epoxy modified cementicious system which can beapplied even on green concrete . Here moisture comes into the system for

curing . So osmosis does not occur .

2) Cracks treatment Death cracks can be treated with epoxy mortar .

Depend upon width of crack, ratio of Kemoxt Concrete (T) and filler will be

decided .

3) Joints treatment- We will discuss about only two types of joint-treatment

a) Construction joint This treatment will be same as crack treatment

b) Contraction and Expansion joint-These joints will be treated with sealant.

Calculation of sealant-consumption

Example- A joint with a) width 12 mm b) depth 10 mm c) Length-100 cm

Volume- 1.2cm X 1cm X 100 cm

= 120 cm3

Suppose Density of sealant is 1.3 kg /lit

Required amount of sealant = (1.3/1000)*120 (1lit = 1000 cm3 )

= .156 kg

= 156 gm

Joint Design- (For polysulphide and polyurethane sealant)

If Joint depth 10 mm ( min joint depth 8 mm)

Joint width- max joint width 40 mm and below

Then Depth: Width = 2:1

If Depth- Up to 10 mm

Then Depth: Width = 1:1

18) Spillage of chemical (like alkali, acid etc)


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There are few factors (mentioned below) help to select the chemical-

resistance coating system .

a) Concentration of the acid

b) Contact time with floor

c) Temperature of chemicals

19) Repairing of SubstrateVoids, holes etc have to be repaired with Kemflor 520 (epoxy mortar). These

repaired portion have to be sealed with sealer coat, otherwise there may be

chance of bubble formation in

these particular area.

Substrate preparation

Surface preparation plays an important role. Concrete or mortar surface

should sound solid and free from dust and loose particles .If uneven, thenscrapping should be done and Clean the surface thoroughly again.

Hacking/shot blasting will be done for very smooth surface to create batter

bonding. At last use industrial vacuum cleaner to ensure complete dust

removal from the surface.

Storage

At site material should be kept under covered shade and lockable area.Before using material , we should see that , temperature is not below 220

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Industrial Floor Treat Ment