Method of producing a glueless dustless composite flooring material system
A method of producing a glueless dustless composite flooring material system providing PVC-based flooring having waterproof layers providing different qualities of hardness, wear-resistance, sound deadening, and decorative patterns, avoiding the use of moisture-susceptible compressed cellulose-based filler, with layers fused together, avoiding the manufacturing complexity and delamination risks of using glue or adhesive, with a quickly-cured, UV-cured top coating providing long-lasting high performance and shortening and simplifying the manufacturing, which can be done in a sheet-form, essentially continuous-run manner, with an ability to quickly and simply change the optional design printing and texturing produced, and having an optional underlayment layer.
1. Composite flooring material segments, each composite flooring material segment comprising:
(i) a flooring base layer comprising a mixture of PVC resin and calcium carbonate,
wherein said mixture is free of glue, and
wherein said flooring base layer is a resultant of extrusion of the mixture at elevated temperature and pressure, mold-forming the extruded mixture into said flooring base layer, and cooling said flooring base layer;
(ii) a waterproof flooring face layer comprising a decorative face sublayer and a wearing face sublayer fused onto a top face of said decorative face sublayer,
where said flooring face layer is textured and fused onto a top face of said flooring base layer by hot-melt overlaying of said layers; and
(iii) a cured waterproof flooring coating layer, applied on top of said flooring face layer,
wherein said flooring coating layer is the resultant of coating said flooring face layer with a UV-curing plastic resin and UV curing said coating of UV-curing plastic resin by exposure to UV light.
2. The composite flooring material segments of claim 1 , where said flooring base layer is free of compressed cellulose material.
3. The composite flooring material segments of claim 1 , where said flooring base layer is a waterproof layer.
4. The composite flooring material segments of claim 1 , where said mixture comprises, by weight, between 20% and 35% polyvinylchloride, and between 63% and 73% calcium carbonate.
5. The composite flooring material segments of claim 4 , where said mixture comprises, by weight, between 2% and 2.5% calcium/zinc heat stabilizer, between 1.6% and 2.5% chlorinated polyethylene elastomer, between 0.6% and 1.7% acrylic polymer modifier, between 0.2% and 0.25% internal lubricant, and between 0.32% and 0.62% high melting point polymer.
6. The composite flooring material segments of claim 1 , where said decorative face sublayer is a PVC decorative polymer film.
7. The composite flooring material segments of claim 6 , where a design is printed onto said PVC decorative polymer film.
8. The composite flooring material segments of claim 6 , where said PVC decorative polymer film further comprises a colored film.
9. The composite flooring material segments of claim 1 , where said wearing face sublayer is a PVC wear-resistant polymer film.
10. The composite flooring material segments of claim 9 , where said PVC wear-resistant polymer film is transparent.
11. The composite flooring material segments of claim 1 , where said flooring coating layer is transparent.
12. The composite flooring material segments of claim 1 , where said flooring coating layer further comprises a gritty particulate material.
13. The composite flooring material segments of claim 1 , where said flooring coating layer further comprises aluminum oxide.