Armstrong World Industries, Inc.

Armstrong Cork Company

George L Lilley

William J Kauffman

Ronald S Lenox

Jennifer W Sager

Robert K Keener

David E Ruch

Darryl L Sensenig

James A Tshudy

J Richard George

Donald C Eckert

Leda Zaginaylo

W Bruce Holland

A preseamed, resilient sheet flooring including first and second composite sheet products positioned closely adjacent each other edge-to-edge to form a seam therebetween. An adhesive is positioned in the seam. The adhesive extends completely through the thickness of the sheet flooring, bonds with the first and second sheet products through the entire thickness thereof, and has visual characteristics suitable for creating an indistinct appearance of the seam in the sheet flooring product. The adhesive also has wear characteristics sufficiently similar to wear characteristics of the sheet flooring to maintain the visually indistinct appearance of the adhesive on the surface of the seam as wear occurs to the sheet flooring, thereby creating a finished seam sufficiently strong and flexible to permit the adhesive to be positioned in the seam prior to unrolling the flooring onto a subfloor surface.

Preseamed sheet flooring product

A preseamed sheet flooring product having first and second sheet products positioned closely adjacent each other edge-to-edge to form a seam therebetween. An adhesive is positioned in the seam and has visual characteristics suitable for creating an indistinct appearance of the seam in the sheet flooring product. The seam also has wear characteristics sufficiently similar to wear characteristics of the sheet flooring product to maintain the visually indistinct appearance of the adhesive on the surface of the seam as wear occurs to the end product sheet material.

Preseamed sheet flooring method

The disclosure is for a wide width decorative flooring product and a method of producing such a product with properly aligned patterns by cutting multiple sections of standard width product and bonding them together at their previous side edges, so the lengths of the cut sections become the width of the new product. In order to minimize misalignment of the pattern at the bonded edges alternate cut sections are turned end for end as the new product is laid out before bonding.

Wide width flooring sheet

A vinyl floor covering to accommodate wood subfloor contraction and expansion as well as rolling load incorporates a foamed plastisol encapsulated glass mat which may be cut to form pivot points and expanded under a controlled pre-stressed condition. The glass mat serves as a carrier during manufacture and an 'elastic glass' reinforcing layer during use as either tension or loose-lay flooring. The floor covering may be a true hybrid surface covering which is capable of accommodating the dimensional change of a target subfloor by utilizing the characteristics of both tension floorings and loose-lay floorings.

Hybrid floor covering

A vinyl tension floor covering includes a reinforcing layer, preferably disposed below the neutral bending plane. The floor covering elongates in at least one direction due to a controlled pre-stressed condition and tends to return to its original pre-elongated dimension. Reinforcing layers expand in the across machine direction as well as machine direction in response to a tensile stretching force in the machine direction or roll-up growth.

Tension floor covering with reinforcing layer

A vinyl floor covering to accommodate wood subfloor contraction and expansion as well as rolling load incorporates a foamed plastisol encapsulated glass mat which may be cut to form pivot points and expanded under a controlled pre-stressed condition. The glass mat serves as a carrier during maufacture and an 'elastic glass' reinforcing layer during use as either tension or loose-lay flooring. The floor covering may be a true hybrid surface covering which is capable of accommodating the dimensional change of a target subfloor by utilizing the characteristics of both tension floorings and loose-lay floorings.

The present invention concerns loose-lay floor structures comprising at least two layers of reinforcing material and processes to design and produce them. Loose-lay floors may be designed which will be suitable for use over stable subfloors, or which will accommodate the movement of very unstable subfloors. Flooring constructed according to this invention will have the ability to resist buckling, curling and doming, and will resist moving under a rolling load. A process is also provided for modifying structures comprising a single reinforcing layer in situ so as to convert structures with unacceptable buckling characteristics into structures with acceptable buckling characteristics. As an alternative, the reinforcing layer may be premodified such that, when used to provide a surface covering, the covering will have acceptable buckling characteristics. In appropriate circumstances, surface coverings of the present invention may also be adhered to subsurfaces, and processes are described wherein the required adhesive capacity of an adhesive can be calculated.

Loose-lay and adhered surface coverings

The present invention relates to superior wear layer-coated embossed surface coverings which are prepared by depositing a cross-linking inhibitor on at least a portion of the surface of a cross-linkable foam formed on a backing and containing a cross-linking initiator. Preferably a wear layer is applied at this point and cross-linking of the affected areas is accomplished by heating the sheet. The sheet of material is either uniformly or differentially heated and then uniformly compressed to a desired embossing depth using a non-patterned press or roll. The noncross-linked regions remain depressed upon removal of the compressing force whereas the cross-linked regions return essentially to their original height. The wear layer remains in contact with all of the foam regions so that the resulting sheet of material has a wear layer which is uniformly adhered to the contour of the foam layer. The surface of the sheet has an embossed or textured finish.

Process of forming an embossed surface covering having a wear layer

The present invention relates to superior wear layer-coated embossed surface coverings which are prepared by depositing a cross-linking initiator on at least a portion of the surface of a cross-linkable foam formed on a backing. Preferably a wear layer is applied at this point and cross-linking of the affected areas is accomplished by heating the sheet. The sheet of material is either uniformly or differentially heated and then uniformly compressed to a desired embossing depth using a non-patterned press or roll. The noncross-linked regions remain depressed upon removal of the compressing force whereas the cross-linked regions return essentially to their original height. The wear layer remains in contact with all of the foam regions so that the resulting sheet of material has a wear layer which is uniformly adhered to the contour of the foam layer. The surface of the sheet has an embossed or textured finish.

A process of forming an embossed surface covering is disclosed. The process comprises forming a crosslinkable foam on a backing, depositing an activator composition to initiate cross-linking on at least a portion of the crosslinkable foam, and heating the resulting crosslinkable foam-containing sheet to a temperature sufficient to crosslink the portions of the foam affected by the deposition of activator composition and melt the portions of the foam not affected by the deposition of activator composition.

Process of forming an embossed surface covering

Reticulated polyvinyl chloride plastisol foams which can be produced using mechanical frothing techniques are disclosed. These reticulated foams are sufficiently open or porous to facilitate screen printing with plastisol inks to produce thru color, decorative, cushioned floor coverings.

Reticulated polyvinyl chloride plastisol foams

A process of forming an embossed surface covering is disclosed. The process comprises forming a cross-linkable foam comprising at least one polymer and having a first phase region and a second phase region; heat the foam to a temperature at least equal to the flow temperature of the first phase region; compressing the heated foam and cooling the foam while compressed; cross-linking a portion of the compressed foam; and reheating the compressed foam to permit the noncross-linked portion of the foam to return or 'pop back' to substantially its precompressed shape and thus form an embossed surface covering.

A process of forming an embossed surface covering is disclosed. The process comprises forming a crosslinkable foam on a backing, depositing a deactivator composition to inhibit cross-linking on at least a portion of the cross-linkable foam, and heating the resulting crosslinkable foam-containing sheet to a temperature sufficient to crosslink the portions of the foam not affected by the deposition of deactivator composition and melt the portions of the foam affected by the deposition of deactivator composition.

Growing community of inventors

Manheim, PA, United States of America

George L Lilley