VDF Floorings

Vacuum Dewatered Flooring (VDF) is a special type of Flooring Technique to achieve High Strength, Longer Life, Better Finish and Faster Work. This type of floor is suitable for high abrasion & heavy traffic movement. TheVDF is a system for laying high quality concretefloor. Concrete Vacuum Dewatering System.

What is VDF Flooring or Vacuum Dewatered Flooring

VDF Flooring stands for Vacuum Dewatered Flooring. This is a special technique to do the Concrete Flooring to increase the Compressive Strength, Tensile Strength, Abrasion Resistance and to minimize the Shrinkage and Floor Wraps. VDF Flooring results in High Strength, Longer Life, Better Finish and Faster Work. This type of floor is suitable for high abrasion & heavy traffic movement.

The Vacuum Dewatered Flooring or VDF Flooring is a system for laying high quality concrete floors where the key is Dewatering of Concrete by Vacuum Process wherein surplus water from the concrete is removed immediately after placing and vibration, thereby reducing the water: cement ratio to the optimum level.

Procedure of VDF Flooring

• Tying Line Dori (Threads) as per the slope requirements
• Laying Guide Rails to every 4 meters using MS Channels or as required in straight lines along the Line Dori, taking levels as per the slope and fixing them using concrete also called grouting and left to set for a minimum of 24 hours
• Pouring the concrete in between the channels and spreading using Shovel or Hoe (Kudal/Parah)
• Vibrating the concrete with a poker vibrator especially to the sides of the panels
• Surface Vibration the concrete using Double Beam Screed Vibrator running over the guide rails twice to achieve maximum compaction for RCC with double mats
• Final levelling of the concrete using the Straight Edge/Bull Float/Aluminium Bottom (Fanti/Baddha)
• A system of lower mats & top mat is laid on the green concrete & this is attached to a vacuum pump. This draws out surplus water if any. (We strongly oppose dewatering of RMCs. RMCs have water cement ratio already maintained to its minimum possible level by addition of admixtures. Further dewatering decreases the water cement ratio below the required level thereby causing undulations in the surface, loss in strength and formation of cracks.)
• The concrete is left to stiffen. When the base concrete has stiffened to the point when foot traffic leaves an imprint of about 3-6 mm and any bleed water should now have evaporated, but the concrete should have a wet sheen, Floor Hardener is applied at an even application rate of 3-7 Kg/Sqm or as per the requirement of the floor.
• Application of Power Floater on the surface until the surface is sufficiently compacted & levelled with no major lines appearing any more
• Final finishing using Power Trowel and trowelling until the required finish is achieved. Finish could be any of the Smooth Finish, Sand Finish or Line Finish.

Benifits of VDF Flooring – Vacuum Dewatered Flooring

• Increased Compressive strength by more than 50%.
• Reduced Cement consumption by more than 30% as no cement is required separately for finishing.
• Increased Abrasion resistance by more than 50%.
• Increased wear resistance.
• Minimum dusting & crack formation.
• Minimum dry and plastic shrinkage and floor wraps.
• Uniform homogeneous floor with High flatness accuracy.
• Lower water permeability due to increased density.
• High early strength minimizes damage on newly cast floors.
• Earlier utilization and Reduced maintenance cost.

Typical Application Areas of VDF Flooring

• Warehouses, Godowns
• Roads, Sports Courts
• Cellars, Parking Areas
• Production Areas
• Pharmaceutical Companies
• As the base floor for Epoxy & PU Floorings

IPS Floorings

IPS FLOORING: INDIAN STYLE CONCRETE FLOORING (Indian Patent Flooring)

• It is normal type of Concrete flooring and cheapest method of flooring.
• Generally it is a better substitute of Tile, granite and Marble flooring.

Few of the important specification of IPS Flooring

IPS flooring stands for Indian patent stone flooring, it is a basic type of flooring which provides good wearing properties. It is generally used for all types of floors and mix of concrete used for IPS flooring specification is 1:1.5:3 (cement, sand and stone aggregates). As per the nature of use the flooring thickness of concrete is decided from 25 mm to 50 mm.

It is laid over the concrete base (1:4:8), which is almost 3 to 4 inches thick plain cement concrete (PCC) base. (VDF)You can decide the thickness of the IPS flooring as per the requirement of work; in residential floor 75 mm floor thickness is sufficient whereas industrial floor thickness should be kept 150 mm.

PREPARATION WORK BEFORE IPS FLOORING

• Prepare the sub-base by watering and ramming and ensuring no loose material are left. Level the surface and stone soling layer of 150mm to 230 mm to be provided as per the requirement.
• It is recommended to provide adequate slope in Plain cement concrete (PCC) in a base course as it will not be possible to maintain slope in IPS layer due to limited thickness.
• Door frames should be fixed prior to flooring work

PROCEDURE OF IPS FLOORING

• First of all make reference level on the wall transfer this marking to all location where flooring to be done with help of water level tube.
• Ensure there is no air bubble present in water and then it is exactly matching the water level while keeping both end together. Reference mark is to be transferred on all across the flooring area and it should be marked permanently with the help of line marker.
• Flooring thickness level to be marked and dummy level dots provided in every 1 or 2 meter ensuring required slope of flooring.
• After proper setting of these dummy concrete dots. Concrete in specified mix should be poured in panels to minimize shrinkage cracks. The size of panel should not exceed more than 3 square meters for indoor and 2 square meter for outdoor flooring.
• Glass, aluminum or brass strip are fixed in cement mortar with their tops at proper level according to slope and allowed to harden for minimum 36 hours.
• After pouring of concrete, surface to be leveled with a Straight Edge and finished with a wooden float or trowel.
• The final toweling should be done before the concrete has become hard and sufficient pressure is required to make firm impression on the concrete surface.
• There should not be any mark left on the finished surface and care should be taken that no cement slurry spread on the surface.
• If glossy or smooth IPS flooring surface required then neat cement punning, 2 to 3 mm thick is spread over the IPS concrete surface and allowed to soak into the concrete. The surface is finished with metal trowel 3 to 4 times to give surface a glossy look.
• For curing of IPS concrete flooring surface pond or wet Hessian clothes are spread over surface for 15 days.
• If required, Vacuum dewatered machine to be used for big work to give surface smooth and better finish. This not only prevents concrete surface cracks but also increase the abrasion resistance of IPS concrete surface.
• Further to avoid surface cracks, polyurethane fibers are added to concrete, in small portion. This type of concrete is also called Ferro cement concrete.
• The casting of concrete flooring in panels to avoid shrinkage cracks and work as expansion joint. Therefore it is advisable to use Tremix flooring especially when large areas like platform surface, pavements and industrial flooring are to be done.