Floor element

Details Floor element Floor element

1996-04-18

1998-10-27

Ahmad, Nasser

Stock material or miscellaneous articles

Two dimensionally sectional layer

428 45, 428 46, 428 50, 428 52, 428 76, 428192, 4285371, B32B 310

Patent

active

058275924

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to a floor element for covering a substrate, which floor element comprises a wood fibre board. This floor element can be laid together with other such floor elements on a flat substrate to form a floor, by joining the elements together by the side edges.


BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Such a floor element is known from Dutch Patent Application NL-A-9000342. This known floor element comprises a carrier board, consisting of two wood fibre boards, and a hard, hard-wearing and scratch-resistant plastic sheet thereon as the bearing surface. Bearing surface in this case should be understood as the surface of the floor element facing away from the substrate. The carrier board and plastic sheet are bonded together with adhesive. The floor elements can be joined together to form a floor by providing them at the side edges with tongues and grooves which fit into each other. A floor made up of such floor elements, consisting of a carrier board and a plastic sheet, is known as a laminated parquet floor.
A disadvantage of the known floor element is that when it is exposed to fluctuating temperature and air humidity, and in particular when it is in direct contact with moisture, the floor element can become warped, and the plastic sheet can become detached from the fibre board (delamination). As a result of this, bulges occur relatively quickly at the side edges of the floor element in particular, which means that in use uneven wear of the plastic layer occurs, which therefore means that the appearance of the floor becomes unattractive. Owing to these effects, the service life of a floor made from the known floor elements is often undesirably limited. In practice, in order to lessen this disadvantage, people are therefore generally advised that when laying the floor elements to form a floor they should apply an adhesive between the tongues and the grooves of the adjacent floor elements. The disadvantage of this is that the floor elements cannot be removed again without damaging them, for example when moving house. Another major disadvantage of the known floor elements is that a plastic sheet is artificial, i.e. unnatural, in appearance.
From FR-A 2 591 641 a floor element is known comprising a support on which a wooden fibre material is provided. The top of the wooden fibre material is covered with a lacquer layer.
From DE-A-3 243 623 a fibre mat is known which can be shaped by pressing and is hardened with a resin material.
The fibres of both the German and the French specification are relatively non-dense and unsuitable to be used as floor element without any support.


SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The object of the invention is to provide floor elements in which the abovementioned disadvantages are less apparent.
This object is achieved according to the invention through the fact that the floor element has a bearing surface consisting of a wood fibre board which is covered with a transparent lacquer coating at least on said bearing surface.
It has been found that the floor element according to the invention can readily withstand exposure to fluctuating air humidity and temperature. It has also, surprisingly, been found that the floor element according to the invention very satisfactorily meets the high standards which are set for floors in practice without the use of a hard plastic sheet. This is particularly surprising because wood fibre boards per se have been known for a long time now and have already been in use for a fairly long time as carrier boards in floor elements. A possible explanation for the good properties of the floor element may be that, when applied to the wood fibre board of the bearing surface, the transparent lacquer, through its absorbent action, does not simply lie on the wood fibre board, but can also penetrate there to a certain depth into the board. A reinforcement of the top layer of the wood fibre board and very good adhesion of the lacquer coating to the wood fibre board are obtained as a result.
Due to the fact that the fibre structure of the woo

REFERENCES:
patent: 3894569 (1975-07-01), Huttunen
patent: 3907624 (1975-09-01), Gravely
patent: 5156569 (1992-10-01), Muller

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