An industrial floor is a piece of working plant. It carries racking legs at point loads that would punch through a commercial covering, takes forklift traffic all day, and in food production gets washed down with hot water and chemicals that would destroy most finishes.
What the flooring has to cope with
Loading comes first, and it is rarely uniform. Racking transmits very high loads through small base plates, while MHE wheels concentrate abrasion along fixed routes. A floor specified for the average condition fails at both.
Then exposure. Chemical resistance, thermal shock in cold store and food areas, and washdown regimes all narrow the choice, and in food production that usually means a polyurethane system rather than an epoxy, for its tolerance of hot water and movement.
Working around operations
- Phased around racking down periods and shutdown windows
- Very large areas programmed for continuous placement where the system requires it
- Joint layout and movement detailing designed rather than inherited from the slab
- Line marking and demarcation set out with the operations team
- Traffic routes kept live where a full closure is not possible
