10-04-2017, 08:27 PM
VDF Flooring also known as Vacuum Dewatered Flooring is a special type of Flooring Technique to achieve High Strength, Longer Life, Better Finish and Faster Work. This type of floor is suitable for high abrasion & heavy traffic movement.
The Vacuum Dewatered Flooring or VDF Flooring is a system for laying high quality concrete floors where the key is Dewatering of Concrete by Vacuum Process wherein surplus water from the concrete is removed immediately after placing and vibration, thereby reducing the water: cement ratio to the optimum level.
How to do the VDF Flooring?
Procedure: In this system of VDF Flooring or Vacuum Dewatered Flooring, concrete is poured in place & vibrated with a poker vibrator especially to the sides of the panel for floor thickness more than 100mm. Then surface vibration is done using double beam screed vibrator running over the surface, supported on channel shuttering spaced 4.0 meters apart. The screed vibrator is run twice to achieve optimum compaction & levelling. The vibrated surface is then levelled using a straight edge.
After this a system of lower mats & top mat is laid on the green concrete & this is attached to a vacuum pump. This draws out surplus water if any. The concrete is left to stiffen. When the base concrete has stiffened to the point when light foot traffic leaves an imprint of about 3-6 mm, Floor Hardener is applied at an even application rate of between 3-5 Kg/Sqmt. Any bleed water should now have evaporated, but the concrete should have a wet sheen. The concrete is then further compacted and levelled using Power Floater followed by finishing as per the requirement using Power Trowel.
What are the Benefits of VDF Flooring?
Increased Compressive Strength
Increased Tensile Strength
Increased Abrasion Resistance
Minimum Shrinkage & Floor Wraps
Decreased Cement Consumption
What are the Typical Application Areas of VDF Flooring?
Warehouses, Godowns
Roads, Sports Courts
Cellars, Parking Areas
Production Areas,
Pharmaceutical Companies
As the base floor for Epoxy & PU Floorings
Groove Cutting
What is Groove Cutting?
Groove Cutting is cutting the laid concrete providing grooves of size 5mm wide and one third of the thickness of the concrete (or as required at site) within 48 hours of laying of the concrete to form bays of 4Mtrs X 4Mtrs using heavy duty cutting machine with diamond cutting wheel and filling of the grooves with appropriate sealant.
Concrete expands and contracts constantly with changes in the temperature, the moisture content of the air and due to drying of cement which results in shrinkage. The movements result in stress that can cause cracks in the concrete and destabilization of the base.
Uncontrolled cracking can cause an uneven surface, which is subject to increased wear over time and water seepage, which can damage the substrate. Though cracking is almost impossible to prevent, it can be controlled. The use of specific types of control joints helps accommodate the movement of the concrete and avoid long-term damage.
Making Grooves is one such method to insert contraction joints into slabs to guide cracks along a predetermined line. The purpose of the Groove Cutting is to weaken the slab along the approved line so that the slab cracks there instead of somewhere else. In order to be effective, the contraction joint must be at least one quarter as deep as the slab is thick.
In case of heavy load traffic, a Load Transfer mechanism is used. Load transfer devices prevent the cement slabs from shifting under heavy loads. Shifting can cause uneven slabs and breakdown in the joints. Dowels, load plates, or slots can be embedded into the concrete to act as load transfer devices. These devices are laid perpendicular to the construction joint, extending into both slabs across the joint. Their purpose is to distribute the load evenly between slabs thereby protecting the concrete along the joints.
Groove Cutting Methodology:
Providing grooves of size 5mm wide and 25mm deep (or as required at site) to form bays of 4Mtrs X 4Mtrs using groove cutting machine with diamond cutting wheel and filling of the grooves with appropriate sealant.