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3M USES CUTTING EDGE TECHNOLOGY TO OFFER WIDE RANGE OF HIGH PERFORMANCE ENTRANCE MATTING & FLOORING SOLUTIONS
29 June 2006 - VISTAGY
| Whether you are designing a new-build or refurbishing an existing site, choosing the right entrance matting is a major decision. In addition to providing a public access that looks consistently smart and welcoming, entrance matting should be effective in removing and trapping dirt and moisture, be of adequate length to maximize the number of footfalls, and be easy to clean. |
Specifiers should also ensure that, now that Part 3 of the Disability Discrimination Act is in force, entrance matting complies with government legislation. All service providers whose premises have public access must take steps to ensure that permanently or temporarily disabled people can enter, use and exit the building easily and safely without risk of slipping. According to British Standard 8300-2001: (Design of buildings and their approaches to meet the needs of disabled people), Section 9.1.3: in public buildings, surface laid rugs and mats should not be used
if they are used in exceptional circumstances, they should be securely fixed to the floor at their edges and any joints
deep pile carpets and coir matting on the surface of the floor or within a matwell should not be used
at wheelchair turning points and other heavily used areas, carpet/matting should be fixed in place.
Simon Newington, 3M Product Manager for Matting Systems, explains, "Providing good, fixed access matting that complies with the DDA legislation does not deter from creating an entrance that is imaginative, efficient and attractive. For instance, 3M's range of Optima 9900 recessed-well matting and Optima 8500 surface-mounted matting allows easy, safe access for people of all abilities, and provides an attractive, cost-effective, durable entrance solution that keeps floor areas free from dirt and moisture." Dirt and moisture ingress can leave unsightly marks and stains, resulting in significant cleaning costs. For instance, one person can easily bring in 0.58g of dirt per day. On average, it costs £860 to remove just 1kg of dirt. To equate this in real terms, if 100 people enter your building every day, they can bring in 21.2kg of dirt per year - leading to a potentially major annual cleaning cost. Simon continues, "Without suitable and sufficient entrance matting, tracked in water can also turn hard floor surfaces into skid pads, and carpeted floors to reservoirs, which could lead to a costly slip, trip or fall. For optimum safety and performance, all primary entrances should have at least 2m of scraper primary matting to scrape and remove the bulk of dirt, with 4m of secondary carpet style matting for effective moisture removal." As the demand increases for new architectural interior design concepts and safe flooring solutions for buildings with public access, 3M uses technology innovation, expertise and years of experience to develop new solutions. For recessed well areas, the new 3M Nomad Modular Matting System enables a choice of colour, pattern and style previous unavailable in entrance matting, and the tiles can be applied in any format to suit corporate identity, interior design and weight of traffic. The scraping functionality of the new system offers an exceptional combination of dirt retention and moisture absorption in two types of highly absorbent tile: the Nomad 8300 "scraping" tile and the Nomad 8900 "scraping and textile" tile. Available in boxes off the shelf, the system is considerably quicker and easier to install and more cost-effective than traditional alternatives for recessed wells.
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About: VISTAGY
VISTAGY, Inc., is a leading developer of engineering software that enhances commercial 3D CAD systems. VISTAGY’s specialized engineering environments enable engineers to capture and communicate complete digital product definitions within CAD, thereby increasing productivity, improving the communication of product information throughout the product’s lifecycle, and allowing better-informed decision making early in design. VISTAGY software is used throughout the world in the aerospace, automotive, marine, medical, sporting goods, and transportation interiors industries. The company also offers training and consulting services. FiberSIM is a suite of software that turns major CAD systems into advanced tools for designing and manufacturing composite parts. The software enables engineers to create a complete digital product definition of a composite part within their 3D modeling environment. FiberSIM supports flexible design methodologies for a wide variety of materials and manufacturing processes and automatically generates design details all the way from complex ply and zone drop-offs to variable offset surfaces for mock-up and tooling. The software simulates how composite material deforms over complex curvature and generates manufacturing information including documentation, flat patterns, and data to drive downstream manufacturing equipment. FiberSIM also uses XML technology to share composites data with people and applications throughout the enterprise. |
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