Extruded Plastic Covering Panel with Profiled Edges
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing waterproof floor coverings made from extruded synthetic plastic materials face challenges in achieving a thin, lightweight, and ecologically friendly design with uniform strength and impermeability, while maintaining sufficient coupling strength and sound insulation, and allowing for easy disassembly and reuse.
Innovation Solution
A covering panel with a single-piece extruded support plate made from hard synthetic plastic, featuring strip-shaped recesses and complementary profile edges for anchoring, and a manufacturing process involving co-extrusion and calibration to achieve a thin, even surface with reduced weight and enhanced sound insulation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Weight of moving object
If the panel thickness is reduced to decrease weight, then weight is reduced, but the coupling strength of tongue-in-groove connection becomes insufficient
Solution Approach 1:
The panel is divided into a thin top surface layer (3-5mm) and a separate bottom profile structure with tongue and groove elements. This segmentation allows the top surface to be extremely thin for weight reduction while the bottom profile provides the necessary coupling strength through interlocking geometry, resolving the contradiction between thinness and connection strength.
Solution Approach 2:
The coupling strength is moved from the vertical dimension (panel thickness) to the horizontal dimension (profile edge geometry). The tongue-in-groove connection operates in the lateral direction with clamping force applied perpendicular to the panel surface, allowing thin panels to achieve strong connections through profile design rather than relying on thick material.
2Loss of substance
If recycled synthetic plastic material is used to decrease material consumption and increase ecological friendliness, then material efficiency is improved, but the uniformity of strength and characteristics becomes heterogeneous
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies different material qualities to different regions: the top surface layer uses material optimized for smoothness and coating adhesion, while the bottom profile structure uses material optimized for mechanical strength and coupling. This local differentiation allows use of recycled materials with varying properties in different zones, maintaining overall uniformity of function while accepting local heterogeneity in material composition.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the physical and chemical parameters of the recycled plastic material through processing - controlling melting temperature, residence time in extruder, and cooling rates - to ensure consistent flow characteristics and final properties despite variations in recycled material composition. This parameter control transforms heterogeneous recycled input into uniform output with predictable strength and surface quality.
3Quantity of substance
If the panel thickness is reduced to achieve thinner design, then material usage is decreased, but the sound insulating capacity is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a composite structure with a thin top surface layer and a separate bottom profile structure with air channels and cavities. This composite design provides sound insulation through multiple mechanisms (mass loading from the profile structure, air gap insulation, and sound path interruption) while keeping the overall material quantity low, resolving the contradiction between thinness and sound insulation.
4Manufacturing precision
If the top surface evenness is improved to below 50 microns for coating attachment, then coating adhesion is improved, but the manufacturing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent incorporates surface evenness control directly into the extrusion process itself - using calibrated die surfaces, controlled cooling rates, and precise extrusion parameters - to achieve the required 50-micron surface evenness before the panel leaves the extruder. This preliminary action eliminates the need for subsequent machining or grinding operations, maintaining high precision while avoiding added manufacturing complexity.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution results in a lightweight, ecologically friendly panel with improved strength, impermeability, and sound insulation, while allowing for easy disassembly and reuse, with a weight reduction of up to 20% and a surface evenness of less than 50 microns.
Implementation Method 1
The plasticized synthetic material is thereby pressed through a suitably heated extrusion nozzle (57) with a slot-shaped extrusion opening (64)
Implementation Method 2
The freshly extruded plate is subsequently passed through a controllably cooled calibration section
Implementation Method 3
at least against said top surface, for producing there the local suction of that surface
Implementation Method 4
the passage space for the synthetic plate for calibration in this calibration section is designed in such a way that it gradually narrows downstream
Data Source
Figure 1~4
Figure 5~8
Figure 9~12
AI summary
The invention relates to a covering panel (1, 25) with a single piece of extruded support plate (2), made from synthetic plastic material, preferably at least in part of recycled synthetic plastic material, with a flat and even top surface (3), a bottom face (18) and with pairs of opposite sides (4,5; 34, 35) that are provided with complementary profile edges in the form of a male profile edge (6; 26; 36) on the one side and a female profile edge (7; 27; 37) on the other, where said male profiled edge (6, 26, 36) can be connected, in a clamping or anchoring manner, to a female edge (7, 27) of an equal adjacent covering panel (8, 28), preferably according to a direction D that runs perpendicular to said top surface. In their bottom face (18) there are a number of strip-shaped recesses (19) that run according to the direction of extrusion and that alternate in that place with a number of support strips (20), of which at least a part (46) has a width S along that bottom face that complies with 1,5T < S < 10T, and whereby 0,4T < C < 0,7T applies, in which C is the average depth of these recesses (19). The invention relates also to a process for the extrusion of a synthetic plastic plate.