Mount Airy, North Carolina - NCFI Polyurethanes supplied its Terrathane geotechnical foam for the refurbishment of a historic landmark, the American Royal, in Kansas City, Missouri.
The American Royal, a complex of buildings of over 56 600 sq.m, has had issues with uneven concrete slab floors for many years, due to soil erosion. The floor of the Governor's Exposition Hall began shifting back in 1980s and the only remedy was to fill the voids beneath it with asphalt, and eventually to apply asphalt over the slab for a level surface, according to NCFI.
In 2011, the American Royal management was faced with the choice of finding a better, more permanent solution or replacing up the entire floor. The management eventually decided to look into polyurethane geo-technical foam, selecting the company Pro Foundations Technology to carry out the work, NCFI noted in a 31 Jan news release.
Pro Foundations got to work "foamjacking." This term is based on the legacy method of "mudjacking," in which a slurry, or grout of water, dirt and cement is pumped under a concrete slab to lift it to its original level position.
Pro Foundations used NCFI's TerraThane PU geo-technical foam instead of the mud slurry. The polyurethane foam is lighter than grout so it doesn't overburden the soil, and very high compression strength so it handles heavy loads, according to NCFI.
"TerraThane is an ideal product for void filling and concrete lifting," said Joe Morgan of Pro Foundations. "We drilled through 30-36 inches (76.2-91.4 cm) of asphalt and concrete, pumped the two-part TerraThane foam into the holes to fill the voids then raised the slabs to level."
Morgan said in the news release that his firm has been using TerraThane for more than four years because it is "more efficient, economical, requires less-to-no maintenance and is safer to apply."
NCFI of Mount Airy, North Carolina makes PU foam chemical systems for applications, such as spray foam-in-place insulation, roofing, and speciality moulding. It also makes flexible foams.
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