SAFETY FLOORING
A SHORT EVOLUTION OF MATTING
In light of PHS Group celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, Lynne Vanes, Managing Director of leading supplier of mats and matting, PHS Treadsmart, takes a brief look at the evolution of floor coverings.
On the subject of safety flooring, it is worth nothing that PHS Treadsmart holds a Royal Warrant for the supply of mats and matting and has achieved quality management certification ISO 9001 and environmental management certification ISO 14001. But here, we’re going to look at how far floocoverings have come from the first scatterings of straw to warm and soften the underfoot experience, into the technologically advanced mats and matting currently available to facilities buyers which fulfil a myriad of different functions.
Modern floor coverings are technological marvels, combining attractive appearance with durability, comfort and functionality and matting offers the ability for floor coverings to be altered in small areas to either better suit the task that is being carried out or to solve the problem in that area, meaning they can be specified on anything from general cleaning properties, staff comfort and anti-slip properties to electro-static protection.
At an entrance with high footfall from the outdoor environment, for example,
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it would be expedient to specify matting with high moisture absorbency and scraper action to remove and trap the average seven grams of street soiling that will be carried in on each piece of footwear, to protect the wider interior environment of the building. There are a multitude of different types of entrance matting on the market these days, all designed to meet different absorption, cleaning, and appearance criteria.
In many situations, where there is a combination of high traffic volumes, a requirement for high standards to be maintained and maintenance cost constraints, the flexibility of fitted modular matting tiles is the answer. This opens up the possibility of rotating the tiles from high-traffic to lower-traffic areas as wear occurs and, if necessary, replacing individual tiles as they reach the limits of wear without the expense of renewing the entire installation. In environments with large or multiple entranceways, like airports or other transportation hubs, exhibition arenas, high-traffic retail venues and malls, this kind of
rotational replacement can bring significant overhead reductions.
The list of matting innovations extends to anti-slip mats, workstation floor protection, wet area safety and barrier matting too – and that’s without even touching on the topic of matting for exterior environments. In short, the supply of matting is a highly sophisticated industry, committed to providing good value with the most appropriate and effective interfaces between us humans and developed floor surfaces. But what of the future? As we all know, the pace of scientific advance is constantly accelerating. New materials and new production methods will continue to change the way we deal with our fundamental needs. One example in particular is the new graphite derivative, Graphene, discovered by two Nobel Prize winning professors in Manchester that has really opened the real prospect of another quantum leap in materials science. Thousands of patents have already been lodged for the use of this material. At just one atom thick (that’s about 1,000
times thinner than a human hair!), Graphene is a two- dimensional ‘chicken wire’ mesh, 200 times stronger than steel, which means that an almost invisible sheet, one metre square, could support the weight of a 4kg cat – while still weighing less than one of the cats’ whiskers. It has the most amazing conductivity characteristics and is phenomenally impermeable. Arguably, it’s the most extraordinary substance ever encountered.
A great deal more research is required, of course, from the 2,000 teams around the world looking at practical applications of this new wonder material. But the mind boggles at the impact such a substance might have on the resilience, permeability and insulation characteristics of matting and flooring products in the future.
Watch this space!
www.phs.co.uk/treadsmart
www.tomorrowsflooring.com
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