RotaFloor – new options for testing floors and tiles with certification

The Timber Research Institute has developed and commissioned a new testing facility that brings the possibility of testing not only traditional wood-based materials, but especially tiles, whether ceramic, concrete, terrazzo or large-format tiles.

However, this area is not as far removed from the remit of the Timber Research Institute as it might at first appear. One of the main sources of problems in modern timber buildings is the watertightness of bathrooms and other areas traditionally fitted with ceramic or similar tiles. Understanding the properties and durability of these surfaces should also lead to new research tasks in this field in the future.

The device is unique because it was developed in the Czech Republic on the basis of available and standardized information, in close cooperation with the Silicate Association and its leading expert Dr. Eduard Justa, WOODEXPERT s.r.o. and GIS Engineering. There are only units of similar equipment in Europe.

RotaFloor, as the test facility of the Timber Research Institute was named, enables accredited testing of tiles and other floor constructions according to several foreign standards.

The principle of testing is the movement of specific castors loaded with standardised forces over the floor surface. During the development process, it was necessary to solve the issues of precise loading, speed control or converting the requirements of the American standard into the metric system.

The equipment is now fully operational, has successfully passed the accreditation process and is being used, among other things, to prepare for planned research on the long-term waterproofing of bathroom floors in wooden buildings.

Contact: M. Polášek, polasek (@) vvud.cz