CWC, means Carbon Wood Composite, mainly made of melamine resins and high-density fiber board, is becoming more and more popular in many countries.
As well known, laminate both has a very similar texture and feeling to solid wood flooring and cheaper price. This is the main reason why more and more people’s notion is changing and starting to accept laminate instead of solid wood flooring. On the other hand, using laminate can help human greatly reduce the dependence on timber resources.
CWC is an upgraded flooring of laminate, not only has laminate advantages, but also famous with its superior water resistance performance compared with many other laminate. Here we will introduce a concept called ‘Swelling Rate’, this rate represent that after the flooring absorbing the moisture, the core start to slowly swell. After a while, the flooring size become a little larger than original state. The increased size account for its original size is called ‘Swelling Rate’. It is obviously that the lower this rate is, the less deformation laminate will appear.
Regular laminate swelling rate is less than 18%, while CWC can make the rate less than 10% or even 5%. One tip should be noticed that some seller claim that their CWC swelling rate can reach less than 3%. Actually this is very difficult and nearly impossible, 5% swelling rate has been a very outstanding standard.
In fact, CWC like laminate, has some other significant test index as well. When you choose and purchase CWC, the below points should not be ignored.
As described above, you should select the CWC that ranges from 5% to 10%.
The test methods is, after using sandpaper to rub on the overlay until scuffing the wear layer, recording the rolling times.
According to EN 13329 Standard, it is divided into 5 levels, from AC1 to AC5:
AC1/21: more than 900r, mainly used for domestic moderate usage
AC2/22: more than 1500r, mainly used for domestic general usage
AC3/23, AC3/31: more than 2000r, mainly used for domestic heavy and commercial moderate usage
AC4/32: more than 4000r, mainly used for commercial general usage
AC5/33: more than 6000r, mainly used for commercial heavy usage
This represents the laminate's durability performance. The test method is, letting a steel ball fall freely to hit the overlay, increasing by a fixed dropping height each time, until the appearance broken, then recording its height data. In the test, experimental personnel will both take small ball and large ball test, changing weight to small ball and changing dropping height to large ball.
According to EN 13329 Standard, it is divided into 3 levels, from IC1 to IC3:
This represents the ratio of bending moment to the curvy section modulus under maximum load. The more the ratio is, the more strength the flooring can withstand. This reflects the strength and stability of laminate.
