WPC
Here to share details about PVC protective-films for WPC-floor, including material and it’s function, WPC flooring standards, styles, how to produce WPC with the produce lines and WPC advantages.
WPC——a kind of vinyl flooring, now is worldwide popular products because of it’s environmental-friendly and health protection character, easy to install could be done by personally handling, good quality PVC protective-films for WPC-floor with wear layer cause to water proof, scratch proof and longer lifetime comes compare to laminate flooring.
All producing process of WPC decorative film manufacturers without formaldehyde, it’s widely used in Europe and America area, now it’s becoming popular in China, Asia, Middle East and etc
Material
Polyvinyl Chloride powder and Calcium powder are main capacity of WPC flooring material, same as SPC flooring, but content percentage is PVC powder: Calcium powder=1:1, and reasonable content of accessory ingredients as stabilizer, black carbon, and DOTP oil.
- Calcium powder for WPC flooring requires >1250 mesh for even foaming; coarser particles can damage decorative films. Whiteness >80%, humidity >90%. Insufficient calcium leads to lower density and lighter boards.
- Stabilizer, materials composition by stabilizer fusion, also play a shaping role. If quality not good, shaping will not be good enough cause to board easy broken, increase producing difficulty, and decrease capacity.
Styles & Standards
Structure of WPC: LVT layer, deco film, wear layer, WPC Core, uv coating on surface, IXPE back film.
- Wear layer: Ensures 5-10 years of durability with scratch and wear resistance for high-quality flooring. Made from pure PVC and DOTP oil, offering flexibility, low density, and high tension to prevent LVT bending. Thickness is customizable, with wear layers from 0.1mm to 1.0mm; a 1.0mm layer can withstand 20,000 cycles.
- Deco film: PVC material, most problem is to control color stability, thickness normal 1.0mm.
WPC colors: Color white, cyan or black; Width max1.3mm; Density is much low, exact depends on customer request or foaming control; shrinking percentage length 0.11% , width 0.07%.
WPC designs: normal texture and EIR designs which texture match colors exactly.
- Both normal and EIR WPC flooring are made by pressing LVT layers with wear layer and deco film. For EIR designs, the plates and film patterns must align during pressing..
PVC protective-films for WPC-floor size standards:
- Thickness normal thickness 4mm, 4.2mm, 5mm, 5.5mm, 6mm, 6.5mm with lock, some ould make thickest 9mm, but thinner 3mm or 3.5mm without lock very few.
- Size mainly 1217*146/178, 596*296.
- Length 36″: 4″*36″, 6″*36″, 7″*36″, 8″*36″, 9″*36″ Length 48″: 4″*48″, 6″*48″, 7″*48″, 8″*48″, 9″*48″.
WPC PRODUCING
WPC produce lines foams WPC core then need press machine to press with LVT layers including wear layer and deco film:
A, LVT forming machine shapes the LVT layer, cools it, applies wear layer and deco film with hot press, cools again, then adds UV coating (16-18g/㎡) through preheating, painting, semi-curing, surface painting, UV advection, full curing, and output.
For different texture control with press plates texture difference when press LVT layer.
B, Foaming machine foams WPC core under high temperature, cooling base boards.
C, Cold press LVT layer and WPC core with glue to make both sticked, with quite good peel strength.
Due to WPC core expansion when hot pressed, LVT with wear layer and deco film must be pre-bonded to prevent bending.
D, Cooling for 48h, for flooring to adapt to environment of temperature, moisture content, humidity, for balance incase bending during next step, some in order to make it more stable, would cool for 72h.
E, Cutting, grooving and IXPE back film applying, Inspection and packing.