The biggest challenges for flooring systems in manufacturing facilities are generally in the production areas. These floors not only have to withstand severe exposure, including mechanical, chemical and thermal stresses, but also need to provide the right degree of slip resistance to meet health and safety requirements.
The Sikafloor® systems applied in production areas are based predominantly on Cement, Epoxy and Polyurethane resin technologies, which are developed in our laboratories from more than 50 years of practical experience. For special requirements, different binder and filler systems are combined to achieve specific properties, e.g. polyurethane and cement in the Sikafloor® PurCem® range for high temperature and chemical resistance in wet environments.
Most production areas can be divided into ‘dry’ or ‘wet’ processing areas. Flooring systems in ‘wet’ process areas generally require a higher degree of slip-resistance, which must also be easily cleaned, and yet be resistant to the water and any chemical exposure. In the production areas of the food and beverage industries in particular, a clean floor is obviously of crucial importance to facilitate the necessary hygienic working environment. ‘Dry’ processing areas also often require a balance or compromise to be made between ease of cleaning and slip resistance to meet the requirements for efficiency and hygiene, plus health and safety.
Sika has a complete range of flooring solutions for industrial facilities that are required to be durable under extreme exposures and conditions of use. These conditions can vary from severe chemical attack with thermal shock exposure in the food industry, to high point loading and abrasion in the automotive industry.
The Sikafloor® PurCem® range will perform under the most demanding service environments and can meet all of these and many other different individual exposure requirements with design flexibility. This includes a full range of non-slip / anti-skid profiles.
Each day or even each hour of downtime in production can be very expensive in both new construction and in refurbishment projects. It is always therefore essential to finish all of the flooring work within the shortest possible time, but still ensuring the required performance and durability. Using the fast curing Sikafloor® Pronto systems for floor maintenance and refurbishment projects can reduce down time to a minimum. Sikafloor® systems can also be designed to withstand all of the other requirements and conditions with various degrees of slip resistance and surfaces that are easy to clean.