Armstrong World Industries, Inc.

Awi Licensing Company

Richard E Herr, Jr

William J Kauffman

Cheryl W Landers

Jeffrey S Ross

Gary A Sigel

Larry W Leininger

Elizabeth A Malkowski

The invention comprises a composition and method for controlling the gloss of surface covering products through curing of the composition to create a wearlayer surface, and preferably on a floor covering product. The surface covering product preferably is prepared by application of an aromatic polyester acrylate composition including a flatting agent and/or hard particles, and at least one free-radical generating compound to a substrate, and then the coating is partially cured by exposure to low peak irradiance UV light in either ambient or inert air, followed by fully curing the coating with high peak irradiance UV light in preferably an inert atmosphere to form a low gloss abrasion resistant wearlayer surface. Alternatively, a high gloss wearlayer surface is obtained by solely exposing the preferred composition to high peak irradiance UV light in ambient atmosphere. Furthermore, a differential gloss flooring product is obtained by using the present inventive method described herein.

Process for providing a gloss controlled, abrasion resistant coating on surface covering products

The present invention relates to structures exhibiting unique appearances resulting from the presence of crinkled chip materials. A reflective and/or nacreous platelet or flake material is intermixed with a plasticizer and a general purpose resin, and the mixture is formed into a reflective sheet. The reflective sheet is pulverized to provide a chip material which is then used alone or in combination with other chips to form a mottle comprising a vinyl chloride resin and a plasticizer. Upon consolidating the mottle into a decorative surface, the nacreous and/or reflective chips are found to surprisingly exhibit an enhanced crinkled appearance, thereby exhibiting unique aesthetic properties.

Decorative materials comprising crinkled chips

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Lancaster, PA, United States of America

Richard E Herr, Jr