DE2311422A1 - FLOORING FOR SPORTS AND PLAY AREAS - Google Patents

Description

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REVERSOL S. A. CH-1700 FRIBORG (Switzerland)

Flooring for Sports and play areas

The invention relates to a new type of floor covering for sports and play areas, which does not require any special care and maintenance and which maintains its consistency and elasticity under normal temperature fluctuations.

For a long time, the floor of sports facilities consisted of natural materials such as grinding sand, slag, clinker flour, which had special properties to ensure good water drainage on the one hand and to be largely resistant to excess moisture or dryness on the other. However, these floors required a lot of maintenance and upkeep as they were easily destroyed by lace and studded athletic shoes. However, they had the advantage that they had good shock-absorbing properties, which was beneficial for the athletes .

Later , asphalt-based floor coverings appeared with a more or less large addition of rubber, which had the advantage over the above-mentioned coverings that they only

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required little or no care and maintenance. However, it was disadvantageous that their mechanical properties were largely dependent on the respective temperature by these surfaces were soft in summer and hard in winter.

Another type of flooring consists of materials based on polymers, which are poured in liquid form at the point of application will. The polymerisation gives these coverings a rubber-like surface, which is also not a special one Requires care and maintenance. The suppleness of these coverings is retained at all normal usage temperatures. However, this material has no cavities, pores or the like} so that no shock-absorbing effects are achieved with it can, which naturally leads to excessive and premature fatigue of the athletes.

The purpose of the invention is to avoid the disadvantages of previously known floor coverings for sports and play areas by creating a covering with a certain proportion of cavities in order to achieve a shock-absorbing effect without impairing the elasticity of the material, which is to a lesser extent with the usual ambient temperatures varies.

For this purpose, such a floor covering for sports and play areas is according to the invention characterized by juxtaposed plates made of a rubber granulate coated with a polyurethane-based binder with a void fraction of 5-25% by volume.

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Another feature of the invention is the method of manufacture for these flooring panels characterized in that a rubber granulate coated with a binder based on polyurethane, brought into a mold and under pressure to form plates with is pressed with a void fraction of 5-25% by volume.

To reinforce the panels against excessive or premature wear a prepolymer of polyurethane can conveniently be applied to the plate surface, preferably by adding this is sprayed on.

The molds can be heated to accelerate the polymerization, which can considerably increase productivity.

After removal from the mold, the covering material is in the form of plates with perfect geometric dimensions, which have regularly distributed cavities. This makes the shock absorbing and elastic properties evenly over the whole Distributed plate area.

There is a further advantage of the floor covering according to the invention in that the material content, namely the thermosetting resin based on polyurethane, is much lower than with conventional materials of this type, whereby a very noticeable saving can be achieved.

In addition, the panels are manufactured in a workshop or the like is much simpler and easier, and also leads to much more uniform products than their manufacture on construction sites.

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To create the actual floor covering, the panels are laid next to each other on a water-permeable layer that consists of a lean concrete or a porous asphalt concrete. After the tiles have been laid, they are sprayed on of a prepolymer, which consists of a mixture of isocyanate, polyethers, dye and solvent with an excess consists of isocyanate, whereby rapid curing is achieved through the presence of the moisture in the air.

The purpose of this spray is to paint the surface of the flooring to harden, so that the sporting possibilities can be improved even more.

The practical execution of the production takes place according to the following Embodiment.

A granulate made of rubber with a grain size between 1 and 5 mm, 40% of which goes through a 2mm mesh screen, is coated with 20% of the following binder mixture:

70 parts of diphenylmethane isocyanate (Desmodur VL) as hardener 100 parts of a polyether in the form of a polyol from a reaction of ethylene oxide and propylene with glycerine (Napter 544) as the basis 34 parts pigment (iron oxide) and

5 parts of zeolite

The basic mixture of the last three ingredients is mixed with the hardener shortly before coating the granulate powder, whereby the polyurethane binder is obtained, which

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holds the granules together.

Of course, it is also possible to use other polyurethane-based binder mixtures. Preferably, however
Polyurethanes are used, the basis of which is made of polyethers, in order to achieve a better resistance to hydrolysis or decomposition.

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Claims (4)

2 3 1 U 2 PATENT CLAIMS j 1./Floor covering for sports and play areas, characterized by panels placed next to one another made of a rubber granulate coated with a polyurethane- based binder with a void fraction of 5-25 % by volume. 2. A process for the preparation of the sheets of flooring according to claim 1, characterized in that a rubber granulate is coated with a binder based on polyurethane, placed in a mold and pressed under pressure to form plates with a void content of 5-25% by volume. 3. The method according to claim 2, characterized in that a prepolymer of polyurethane is applied to the plate surface for reinforcement. 4. The method according to claim 3, characterized in that the polyurethane prepolymer is sprayed on. 309838/0943