Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2024-07-30 Origin: Site
Vinyl plank as a new generation of floor covering, has gone into many commercial areas and people’s home. It is widespread used due to its better price and excellent durability. The durability is determined by many factors, scratch resistance, impact resistance, stability in various environment and so on. What’s more, vinyl planks’ thickness will directly determine its foot feeling and many physical performance.
Let me see the vinyl planks structure firstly. As we known, nowadays there are three main popular vinyl planks called LVT, WPC and SPC. They have very similar structures and consist of same raw materials. From the image it is obviously that they both have UV coating, wear layer and decor layer. UV coating mainly provides scratch resistance for the plank and uniform the appearance glossiness. Wear layer mainly provides wear resistance for the plank and decor layer shows the patterns. Here we will specially talk about how will the thickness affect vinyl plank and how to choose better thickness vinyl plank.
Each layer of vinyl plank has different thickness. Actually UV coating and color film thickness are too small so that usually they can be ignore when evaluating its effects from thickness. However, wear layer thickness will influence vinyl plank wear resistant performance a lot. Let me show you a relative test in laboratory.
Environment: Laboratory, room temperature & normal humidity
Instrument: Taber Type Abrasion Tester
Specimens: Three kinds of wear layer thickness(0.3mm, 0.5mm, 0.7mm) SPC flooring pieces; Each kind with three same samples.
Test method standard: EN 660-2
Level evaluation standard: EN 649
Test procedures:
1) Weigh all specimens(total 9) and record
2) Put a 1kg wheel on the Taber Type Abrasion Tester.
3) Select one specimen with 0.3mm wear layer thickness and abrade it during 5000 revolutions. Record its weight after each 1000 revolutions. If it is broken before reaching 5000 revolutions, discard it and use second specimen with 0.3mm wear layer thickness to continue test under 2000 revolutions instead of 5000 revolutions. Repeat the steps and record per 200 revolutions until reaching total 2000 revolutions or when the specimen is broken.
4) Repeat step(3) for all other specimens and record.
5) Calculate the mass loss per 100 revolutions by following formula:
6) Calculate the volume for each specimen per 100 revolutions by following formula:
7) Draw all specimens record data and result as below graph.
From the sheet we can find that the thicker the wear layer is, the less mass loss it will cause.
According to EN 649 level evaluating standard, specimen with 0.3mm wear layer thickness can be defined as Group P while specimen with 0.5mm and 0.7mm wear layer thickness can be defined as Group T. It is obviously that Group T has the best wear resistant performance.
By the way, though 0.7mm is better than 0.5mm, if the wear layer is too thick, it will make it become atomization and influence appearance pattern definition.
It is because the wear layer is mainly made of PVC resin as well, thus the content of PVC will directly affect the final wear resistant performance. Here is the relationship between them.
Therefore, the wear layer thickness and PVC content both determine its final wear resistant performance.
Except the wear layer thickness, substrate thickness will also influence vinyl plank a lot. It will reflects in many aspects based on different thickness.
Actually, the thicker the substrate is, the more comfortable foot feeling it will provide. Though the thickness is positive relative to cost, foaming agent can also be used for some flooring such as WPC.
As we know, sound can be affected by distance, density, porosity and some other factors. A thicker vinyl plank will get a better sound resistant performance than common one. Sound pressure will decrease when pass through thicker flooring because the sound wave need to travel a longer distance.
If the vinyl plank is thick enough, it will show better ability in withstanding heavy things impact. The impact energy will be absorbed and reduce from overlay to the bottom.
Not only its physical performance, thickness will also influence loading quantities during shipment. Like LSPC, it has thicker substrate but same density with SPC, which will let one 20GP container load more square meters vinyl plank and then save shipping cost.
There are three regular kinds of underlay in the market, IXPE, EVA and cork. Most underlay will provide three main function, wet resistance, uneven ground adjustment and sound resistance.
It is because the moisture from the ground will slowly and always rise and spread up to the bottom of vinyl plank, underlay can help insulate these moisture and avoid vinyl plank potential crack and deformation.
If the ground is not flat enough, thicker underlay will also help adjust the uneven ground and keep a height balance among vinyl planks with each other.
Not like substrate, underlay will provide a better sound resistance because of its materials. IXPE is produced by adding foaming agent and common foaming ratio is 10 and 15. This foaming structure makes it have many air holes inside. Thus it will have higher porosity and better ability to reduce sound pressure. What’s more, sound pressure will decrease when passing through different materials. If the sound wave travel through vinyl plank with underlay, it will hit overlay first, and then travel through wear layer, and then substrate, and finally reach and travel through underlay. This process has reduced sound pressure for many times and achieve sound insulation effect.
There are many test standard methods to verify its sound resistance such as STC, IIC, NRC and delta IIC. Here i will show you a test report for one EVA specimen with 1.5mm thickness.
From the report, we can find the result that this EVA underlay sound insulation level are STC 8 and IIC 32. It predicates the fact that EVA underlay has better advantages in impact sound insulation than airborne sound insulation. Thus the underlay like EVA and IXPE is suitable for flooring instead of wall panels or other construction materials.
Then how will thickness affect underlay sound resistant performance? Here i will show you another test report for one EVA specimen with 3mm thickness to compare with.
This report result are STC 10 and IIC 59. Compared with 1.5mm EVA, the airborne sound insulation ability is very similar while the impact sound insulation nearly multiple double. Above all, we can get the conclusion that different underlay thickness will affect the vinyl plank sound resistance a lot. So choose a good underlay to add to the back of vinyl plank will greatly help reduce much noise from outside and avoid disturbing downstairs neighbour when walking and running loudly at home.
So maybe you will think that why don’t i buy thicker EVA to get much better sound resistance, is it correct? The answer is incorrect. The first point is that the thicker underlay means higher price. The second point is critical, too thick underlay will make the whole base become too soft. When people walking on it, some pieces of planks will dent while the adjacent plank keep original state, which will cause height difference, then make damages to the planks, finally crack and deform.
In all, each part thickness of vinyl plank will affect its performance a lot. However, too thick is not a good choice as well because of higher price and other problems that will bring together. Therefore, choose a suitable thickness vinyl plank is significant for customers. Protex will give you more guide and advice on how to choose a suitable vinyl plank for you. If now you have questions or problems on it, do not hesitate to contact us.
