Enbi’s customer offers solutions in the commercial construction market, producing architectural building joint seals. The seals are used between two structural walls, or on cement flooring for parking garages. The seal is designed to expand and contract, as the building reacts to the changes in temperature that occur during the day and from season to season. The seal also has to be able to accommodate large movements caused by thermal expansion as well as being able to handle cleaning chemicals, UV and ozone as well as mechanical damage.
THE HISTORY
Current joint seals are made using foams that are impregnated with an acrylic “wax”. The main problem with the wax is that it can heat up in hot desert climates (such as Nevada, Arizona, California and others) during the hot summer months and the wax “bleeds out” of the joints onto below areas of the structure in parking garages. The bleeding can be unsightly and also is detrimental to the performance of seal in the long run.
OUR APPROACH
Enbi’s customer was looking for an alternate solution to the “bleed” issue and to improve the overall performance of the seal in service. Enbi’s solution was to look at material formulations which provided the same level of performance but without the wax impregnation. One additional benefit is that the Enbi seals can be supplied without the need to be precompressed, saving time for the installers once the seals arrive on site.
BENEFITS
The use of the wax free formulation provided the customer and the end user with significant benefits. The main ones being the service life of the seal was greatly enhanced especially in warm and hot temperature applications. This means that the same seal can be used all over the world greatly reducing the number of SKUs needed to be stocked. Moreover, as the seals are easier to fit, the installation time on site was reduced leading to cost savings for the installers.
