Environmentally sustainable raised access flooring product development

Peng, W ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7408-8207, Su, D ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9541-8869, Wang, S and Ianakiev, A ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1413-8110, 2024. Environmentally sustainable raised access flooring product development. Buildings, 14 (6): 1849. ISSN 2075-5309

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Abstract

Raised access floors are nowadays widely used in buildings. A novel raised access flooring product is developed by this research, with a set of sustainable features, including less environmental impact and high strength. Its floor panels are made of polyurethane (PU) reinforced with glass fibre, which is light-weight and fire-resistant, replacing the traditional floor panel materials, and the panels are supported by simplified steel stringers to reinforce the strength of the flooring product. Instead of the conventional sandwich design consisting of a core material encapsulated by outer layers, the new floor panel design adopts the reinforced PU as its sole material, which not only simplifies the structure but also reduces floor weight and costs. The sustainable advantage is further approved by the environmental life cycle assessments of the new raised flooring product in comparison to traditional ones made of cement and woodchips, with results showing that the new floor product’s total environmental impact is 52% less than cement floor and 47% less than woodchip board floor. Further, the finite element analysis (FEA) was carried out, and the experimental test was conducted to verify the FEA results, indicating that the new product’s strength is higher than the requirements of the raised access flooring product standards. There is no raised access flooring product made of PU reinforced with glass fibre available in the market, and, hence, the new product developed by this research is a novel contribution.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Buildings
Creators:	Peng, W., Su, D., Wang, S. and Ianakiev, A.
Publisher:	MDPI AG
Date:	18 June 2024
Volume:	14
Number:	6
ISSN:	2075-5309
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.3390/buildings14061849 DOI 1905952 Other
Rights:	©2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Divisions:	Schools > School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Record created by:	Laura Ward
Date Added:	20 Jun 2024 08:57
Last Modified:	20 Jun 2024 08:57
Related URLs:	Publisher
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/51600

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