Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2024-09-12 Origin: Site
In the past, solid wood flooring was very popular due to its realistic wood texture and comfortable foot feeling. However, it was only used in many rich residential area due to its expensive cost. Then engineered wood flooring occurred and lasted for some years. Though it used plywood to replace the solid wood substrate and made it cheaper, the size deformation problem still caused great trouble to customers. Thus plastic flooring started to go into public sight firstly in 20th century. In generally speaking, plastic flooring has experienced three generations.
The first generation flooring is LVT, full name is Luxury Vinyl Tile. It is mainly made of PVC resin and limestone powder with approximately 1:1 ratio. It does not contain any wood fiber compared with original solid wood flooring and engineered wood flooring, which makes it have no affinity to water and moisture in the air. This characteristic ensure its excellent water resistant performance, and avoid flooring curling and deforming to the greatest extend.
Let us view its structure to find more difference. Commonly it has totally four layers, UV coating, wear layer, color film and LVT core(middle+bottom).
Based on different installing methods, LVT has been sorted by four types, self-adhesive, glue down, click lock and loose lay. Here is a sheet to understand them well.
Self-adhesive LVT usually is used in rental house. It is very easy to install and cost less than other types LVT. It is a very cheap and practical choice.
Glue down LVT has a wide spread use in residential and commercial areas. It requires glue cover the ground before installation. This installation method can make LVT become more stable by sticking to the ground and prevent from curling in sunlight environment. Therefore, If customer plan to lay LVT on laundry at home or corridors in school, we will advise use glue down LVT instead of other types to avoid any risk of deformation.
Loose Lay LVT is an high-end choice for special requirement. Though it is expensive, its back PVC film has excellent slip resistance and very easy to install as well. You only need to lay it on the ground and combine with each other is OK. It will firmly adhere to the surface of ground.
LVT is famous with its 100% waterproof and easy installation. It is wide spread used in many areas such as residential and commercial scenarios. It also has advantages of scratch resistance and wear resistance due to its overlay UV coating. It has become an affordable choice for many people when selecting decoration materials.
WPC as the second generation of PVC flooring, is made of same materials and ingredients ratio with LVT. The only difference is that foaming agent will be added into mixing bucket during production. This make the final flooring has same density but with thicker flooring, and provides people with a very good foot feeling when walking on it. It is like LVT, has all its advantages as well. However, it is expensive than LVT because of complex production progress. Let us see its structure to find the reason.
Its substrate both contains LVT core and WPC core, and this means cold sticking is required to combine LVT core and WPC core after hot pressing. Thus extra production steps cause extra labour and management cost. In theory, WPC flooring is not better than LVT flooring in water resistant performance due to its foaming substrate. Whereas it has better sound resistance compared with other PVC flooring.
In order to improve the first two generation flooring, SPC as the third generation PVC flooring, has started to go into public sight since 2016. SPC is mainly made of PVC resin and limestone powder as well but with different ratio. The ratio of the former to the latter is about 1:3, which determines that it will be more stiff than LVT and WPC.
Due to its stone crystal structure, it is very stable when in high or low temperature&humid environment. Thus it is very suitable for those country areas where are always in extreme weather such as Thailand, Russia and Australia.
SPC has many advantages compared with many other types of flooring. Its price is moderate in the market, and meanwhile its durability and stability is very outstanding among PVC flooring. What
SPC has many advantages compared with many other types of flooring. Its price is moderate in the market, and meanwhile its durability and stability is very outstanding among PVC flooring. What’s more, SPC is produced by extrusion and this production progress is very suitable for mass production. Also, extrusion technology can customize final planks size so that can reach customers’ various requirement.
From the structure images, it is obviously that they all have underlay. It is optional for customer and commonly such as IXPE and EVA will be used as its underlay. These main function is to insulate humid moisture from the underground and provide sound resistance. In addition, as we know, PVC will expand with heat and contract with cold. Therefore it can also give a balance to the entire structure when experiencing extreme environment.
Below let me introduce some laboratory methods to test PVC flooring performance, including pulling strength, Peeling Strength, Abrasion and Size Deformation.
Commonly this test is mainly used to try out the click locking system strength between two planks. Let us view it by a specimen testing procedure and testing result.
Environment: Room temperature&humidity
Device: Tensile Testing Machine
Specimen: 4.5mm SPC+1.5mm IXPE
Procedure:
1) Enhance the strength in a certain value until the click locking system is broken.
2) Record the critical data and mark it as its max tensile strength.
Test Result:
Conclusion:
From the sheet, the max pulling strength is 137N, and after that, the click locking has been damaged and fractured.
Extension:
After repeating the test for many times with different specimens, we can find that the pulling strength is mainly related to its thickness. And it is with a small portion related to the types of click locking system. Therefore, if you are experiencing flooring splitting problems or very worry about this risk, Protex advise you choosing 4.5~5.5mm thickness SPC flooring.
Commonly this test is mainly used to try out the peeling strength from substrate to wear layer&color film. This test uses same device with pulling strength test. Here is the detailed procedure.
Environment: Room temperature&humidity
Device: Tensile Testing Machine
Specimen: 4.5mm SPC+1.5mm IXPE (half of wear layer&color film has been peel off)
Procedure:
1) Peel the specimen by strengthening the strength step by step.
2) Enhance the strength until the strength can not increase too much.
3) When the strength keeps in a small ranges and finally reach a certain value without any change, record this data as its max peeling strength.
Test Result:
Conclusion:
From the sheet, the max peeling strength is 90N, and when keep on enhancing strength, it can not be peeled off any more.
Extension:
Actually peeling strength is mainly related to one kind of additional agent during raw materials mixing procedure, which is called PE wax. This additional agent can help substrate not easy to stick to the screw stem and reduce friction between substrate and screw stem. However, if it is added too much, this will make substrate fit wear layer&color film not very well during extrusion, and finally lead to its surface peeling after some yeas use in domestic or commercial areas.
This testing is to try out wear layer’s abrasion resistant performance. It is mainly used to evaluate flooring’s durability and lifespan.
Environment: Room temperature&humidity
Device: Taber Abrasion Machine
Specimen: 4mm SPC/3mm wear layer(3pcs), 4mm SPC/5mm wear layer(3pcs), 4mm SPC/0.7mm wear layer(3pcs)
Procedure:
1) Weigh all specimens(total 9) and record
2) Put a 1kg wheel on the Taber Type Abrasion Tester.
3) Select one specimen with 0.3mm wear layer thickness and abrade it during 5000 revolutions. Record its weight after each 1000 revolutions. If it is broken before reaching 5000 revolutions, discard it and use second specimen with 0.3mm wear layer thickness to continue test under 2000 revolutions instead of 5000 revolutions. Repeat the steps and record per 200 revolutions until reaching total 2000 revolutions or when the specimen is broken.
4) Repeat step(3) for all other specimens and record.
5) Calculate the mass loss per 100 revolutions by following formula:
6) Calculate the volume for each specimen per 100 revolutions by following formula:
7) Draw all specimens record data and result as below graph.
Test Result:
Conclusion:
According to EN 649, the result has been divided into 4 levels as T, P, M F. From the below standard sheet and testing result sheet, we can find that 0.3mm wear layer ranges in M level while 0.5mm and 0.7mm wear layer range in T level. Actually 0.5mm thickness is enough because too thick wear layer will also affect the overlay pattern appearance. Thus, Protex advise 0.3mm for residential area use and 0.5mm both for residential&commercial area use.
This test is used to assess flooring’s size stability when putting in simulating high temperature environment.
Environment: Room temperature&humidity
Device: Bake Oven
Specimen: 4mm SPC(3pcs)
Procedure:
1) Put 3pcs specimens in air conditioner(keep 24~25℃) for 24 hours.
2) Cut 25x25mm tiles from 3 specimens and measure the initial length, width and thickness as Li, Wi and Ti,
3) Put 3 specimen tiles into Bake oven with 80℃ and keep for 6 hours.
4) Pick out 3 specimen tiles and then put in air conditioner(keep 24~25℃) for 24 hours.
5) Measure and record the final length, width and thickness as Lf, Wf and Tf.
6) Compare the initial and final data. Then calculate the size deformation rate.
Test Result:
Conclusion:
It is good if the size deformation rate is less than 0.1%. According to test result sheet, all data can reach the standard. This proves that SPC flooring can keep a very stable state in high temperature environment. Bake oven test is used to simulate the products in container when shipping through the equator on the sea.
Except LVT, WPC and SPC flooring, in recent years there are many other new types of PVC flooring occurring in the market such as LSPC, ESPC, HSPC and so on.
Its full name is Light SPC Flooring. Why it is described as ‘Light’ is because it will be added foaming agent during mixing procedure, just the same with WPC. This production step can make SPC become thicker but with lighter weight, which can help load more square meters in 20GP container and save shipping cost. In addition, thicker substrate can also have WPC advantages with sound resistance and better foot feeling. Protex also innovated a brand-new type of SPC flooring with special structure.
It has extra IXPE layer inside and totally has two IXPE layers. This structure can reduce much sound when it passing through the flooring. Sound energy will decrease when travel through different materials. What’s more, IXPE can provide sound resistance as well. After delta IIC test, ΔL result is around 25dB, while regular LSPC is only approximately 18dB. This result showcases the flooring ability to reduce and absorb the sound energy.
Its full name is Engineered SPC Flooring, and its structure is A-B-A frame, just like a sandwich, with LVT-SPC-LVT as its substrate. This frame can make the entire flooring become more stable than regular SPC and also provide a better foot feeling due to top LVT layer.
Its full name is High Pressing SPC Flooring. Its structure is same with SPC, and the only difference is the production steps. The wear layer&color film will be fit to the substrate by hot pressing instead of extrusion. This flooring will make overlay color film fit better than regular SPC.
Nowadays PVC flooring has occupied a more and more important status in construction materials. How to choose a suitable and good quality flooring has also become a difficult problem to many customers. In this year, Protex also focus on developing many other new flooring which is made of different materials instead of PVC resin such as MFC and CWC. If you want to get more guides for various kinds of flooring, do not hesitate to follow Protex website: www.protexflooring.com and Protex will always be your best choice.
