Process of Making Industrial Floors

Industrial floors should be capable of handling the heavy duty load and the accompanying stress factor. The process that goes in to making industrial flooring ensure that the floors come with the required properties to handles such conditions. Additionally the industrial floors should be dust free and also easy to maintain.

Different materials used in making industrial flooring

The basic material used is concrete. On top of the concrete, different surface coating materials are used to provide the desired property to the concrete. The different surface coating material used on top of concrete include

1. Epoxy Plastic coating
2. Hard concrete

Epoxy plastic in industrial flooring

Epoxy belongs to the thermoset group of plastic. This type of plastic is usually rigid in nature due to chemical cross linking of the polymers. The chemical cross linking happens during Polymerization and also by adding hardeners. Epoxy plastic consists of an epoxy resin. This resin gets cured and hardened by the addition of an external hardener.

Properties of Epoxy plastic

Epoxy plastic is used as a surface treatment material on top of the concrete floor due to its following properties.

1. Extreme adhesive strength
2. High mechanical strength
3. Resistance to damages caused by chemicals
4. Low level of shrinkage
5. Provides good heat resistance
6. Water proof and diffusion proof

The thickness of the Epoxy coating layer usually ranges between 1.5 mm and 5mm. The coating thickness is usually decided based on the maximum load that the coating could withstand. If the epoxy coating is too thin, then the concrete below the epoxy coating would start loosen up and finally breaks. In order for the load to be distributed uniformly across the section of the underlying concrete, epoxy coating should have a minimum thickness of 3mm.

Hardened Concrete as a coating material

As an alternative to Epoxy resin, hardened concrete can be used as an effective coating material on top of the concrete layer. Hardened concrete is obtained by mixing granulated quartz with Concrete. By adding granulated quartz to the concrete surface, the surface gets a glossy look to it. Additionally, the durability and the hardness of the industrial flooring concrete surface get enhanced to greater levels. This hardened concrete can only be applied as a surface coating material on top of a new concrete base. It cannot be used as a coating material on top of an old concrete surface. Research has been going on to find out a solution for this restriction, so that the hardened concrete can also be used on top of the old and existing concrete base, as a coating material.

Other material options in Industrial flooring

In addition to using concrete with a layer of Epoxy coating for industrial flooring purposes, other alternatives are also available in the market place. One such alternative is the impregnation of ground diamond in to the concrete surface. When ground diamond is added to the concrete surface, it gets sufficient strength and durability to withstand the industrial load on its own. There is no need to go for an extra layer of coating on top of the concrete base containing ground diamond powder.