GB2597639A

GB2597639A - Improvements in and relating to prefabricated built structures

Info

Publication number: GB2597639A
Application number: GB2008416.6A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Gerald Bevan Philip
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2020-06-04
Filing date: 2020-06-04
Publication date: 2022-02-09
Anticipated expiration: 2040-06-04
Also published as: GB202008416D0; GB2597639B

Abstract

A panel for a building is manufactured by mixing an assortment of glass fragments into a suitable initially viscous settable resin and allowing the resin to set so as to embed the fragments within it. The glass chips may be broken glass bottles and may be irregularly shaped. The resin and glass fragments may be present in a ratio of approximately 85/15. The panel may be incorporated as a roof panel for a building such as a prefabricated house as a pitched roof formed from two of the panels. The panel may be designed to resemble brickwork, stonework, roof tiles or plastered ceilings. The panel may be used as a support pad for a building structure. The resin may be a fire retardant or resistant polyester.

Description

IMPROVEMENTS IN AND RELATING TO PREFABRICATED BUILT STRUCTURES

/5 Field of the Invention

The invention relates to prefabricated built structures and is particularly, but not exclusively, applicable to low cost quickly erected housing.

Review of Art known to the Applicant Traditionally built structures such as housing in the United Kingdom are labour intensive, slow, weather dependent and inefficient in that they involve numbers of workers collaborating across differing trade skills. Once built, finally, they are not designed to be pulled apart again; and so any attempt at clearing the ground they occupy involves noisy, disruptive, polluting demolition techniques. The time honoured approach of casting a concrete pad, layering brick on brick around its periphery, topping the brick walls with wooden roof trusses on which, nowadays, clay tiles are then individually secured into place -and then, after all this, lining out the inside facing ceiling and walls of the structure to mask the coarse brick surface finish, almost defies parody in a 21st century world.

Prefabricated houses, as well as small industrial buildings, have gained popularity in recent decades. The well-known German "Huf Haus" prefabricated homes can be found all over home counties Britain; these, notoriously, are expensive -albeit superb -products.

Neither the traditional nor the more recent house building techniques outlined above tackles the problem of low cost quickly erected social housing. Homeless persons recently (at the date of this patent application) taken off the streets and temporarily housed have been released again with nowhere to go. The time is right io for an innovative approach to that problem in particular. The invention uses such an approach to provide a solution.

Summary of the Invention

is In a first broad aspect according to the invention, a panel for a building is manufactured by mixing an assortment of glass fragments into a suitable initially viscous settable resin and allowing the resin to set so as to embed the fragments within it.

In another broad aspect, the invention is embodied in a rigid or a semi-rigid panel for use in a built structure and which comprises an assortment of glass fragments embedded in a sheet of suitable resinous material.

Each of these broad aspects is clearly so linked as to form part of the same single overall inventive concept.

The intended skilled addressee of this specification will understand that by "suitable" the applicant does not intend the reader to limit the scope of the invention only to the strict wording of the claims which embody the inventive concepts set out above. Such a reader will himself, from his own specialist knowledge, be able to put the invention into practice without further inventive thought.

It will also be apparent to this same reader that the settable resin used in constructing a panel by a method embodying the invention must of course be such as to be able to bond readily to the glass fragments; and that the setting of the resin could be initiated by heat or by an appropriate chemical initiator, again drawn from his own accumulated skill and knowledge in such fields.

Embodiments of the Invention One practical way of realising the invention with advantage is to take advantage of io the fact that there are, literally, hundreds if not thousands of tonnes of broken glass bottle fragments readily available -in waste or landfill or recycling sites -and these, when mixed with an initially viscous polyester fire-retardant resin of the kind used in the construction of boat and car bodies, could set into a suitable rigid panel. The mould used to proportion such a panel can be constructed without inventive is thought, whether incorporating window and door gaps (in the case of a house wall) or pipes, conduit junctions, and the like.

Non-public tests carried out at the United Kingdom Building Research Establishment have shown that an appropriately selected resin will bond far better around irregularly shaped broken glass bottle fragments than it would around, for example, splintered powdered glass window or car windscreen fragments. Combining these two very basic materials in a ratio of, for example, 85/15 glass/resin produced a successfully rigid stress-resistant and -with appropriate mould surface lining, for example Scotch taping -smooth surface.

Such panels, appropriately proportioned as to thickness, could make up an entire house. The pad on which the whole house rested could be made, again with appropriate dimensioning and proportioning of components, by the same straightforward mould-poured setting process. The need for roof trusses would be eliminated as a traditional v-roof need consist solely of two large flat glass/resin panels. Any necessary sealing is a straightforward matter.

Such panels are relatively thermally efficient, soundproof, quick to make and above all cheap if discarded broken glass bottle fragments are used. The outward facing panel surfaces of house walls could be clad for weather proofing and/or decorative appeal; but the resin could be pre-coloured and/or surface-profiled in the mould to reproduce more traditional brick, wood, stone or even concrete appearances. The same approach in mould surface profiling could turn out roof panels whose outermost (in use) faces could simulate traditional ridged roofing tiles. Ceiling panels made by the process of the invention could be delivered to site with profiled decorative faces which negate the need for the traditional plasterer to do his work io once the ceiling panels are in place.

Above all, the invention provides a cheap quick solution to the nation's current housing needs whilst taking up large quantities of what have hitherto been heavy, dirty, dangerous volumes of broken glass bottle fragments. To approach a well-is known field, namely modern prefabricated housebuilding, by combining two such hitherto disparate sources of basic material to construct the inventive panels, involves not one but two steps away from traditional conventional techniques and is therefore inventive in its own inherent right.

The 85/15 percentage ratios of glass/resin disclosed above are only one mix proportion suitable to carry out the invention. The skilled addressee will vary the mix appropriately when confronted with specific instances of application. It will vary in any event as between building-supporting pad, building walls, roof, and internal ceiling panel relative weight constraints and requirements.

Claims

Claims 1. A method of manufacturing a panel for use in a built structure, the method comprising the steps of mixing an assortment of glass fragments into a suitable initially viscous settable resin and allowing the resin to set so as to embed the fragments within it.
2. A rigid or a semi-rigid panel for use in a built structure, the panel comprising an assortment of glass fragments embedded in a sheet of suitable resinous material.
3. The invention as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2 and in which the glass fragments comprise broken glass bottle fragments.
4. The invention of claim 3 and in which the broken glass bottle fragments are irregularly shaped.
5. The invention of any preceding claim and in which the resin and the glass fragments are present in a ratio of approximately 85/15.
6. The invention of any preceding claim when incorporated into a built structure -for example, a prefabricated house -in which the roof of the structure is to consist solely of two large flat glass / resin panels.
7. The invention of claim 6 and in which the roof is intended to function as a traditional v-roof.
8. The invention of any preceding claim and in which the panel incorporates profiled decorative faces whose appearance is designed to reproduce traditional brick, wood, stone or concrete surfacing and / or traditional ridged roofing tiles and / or traditional plastered ceilings.
9. The invention of any preceding claim and in which the panel is intended to function as a building-supporting pad.
10. The invention of any preceding claim and in which the resin comprised an initially viscous polyester fire-retardant resin of the kind used in the construction of boat and car bodies.