Creating the conditions
It is deck equipment in the most fundamental sense: the floor covering itself. Workboat crew usually don’t pay too much attention to what’s underfoot – until it becomes an issue that presents itself as a slip hazard. However, as it remains pretty fundamental to both comfort and safety, a fair amount of research has been applied to it.
For example, Bolidt’s marine and offshore products have benefited directly from R&D support from its central laboratory in the Netherlands. The facility features a climate chamber which simulates temperatures between -25 degrees C and +80 degrees C, putting this alongside relative humidity levels of between 10% and 98%. This allows the team to put quite large pieces (up to 4m by 3m) of any prospective material through its paces in near Antarctic and Caribbean conditions.
The story behind this chamber is an interesting one and makes the point that despite sophisticated predictions, there’s nothing like a field test, or – failing that – recreating conditions as closely as possible.
Paul de Ruijter R&D manager for Bolidt explains that while fitting out some vessels in a Middle East yard, the deck covering showed ‘bubbling’ patterns where spots of resin hadn’t set. The team took samples back to the lab and checked that the resin was up to standard, these were fine…so what was going on? Mr de Ruijter, says: “The yard was hot, the installation guys were working hard – and it was drips of perspiration landing on the resin that had caused the problem.”
“Given that you can’t stop people sweating, especially in those conditions, we just had to find a formula that wasn’t so sensitive,” he says, adding: “The very next day we started building our climate chamber.”
By Stevie Knight
