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When making your way around Heathrow’s Terminal 5, think on this: the foundations of its tunnels and three massive terminal buildings are sitting on a hot melt adhesive – under the foundations is a layer of Cordek’s Cellcore Type CP anti-heave honeycomb panels that use Beardow Adams’ Pressen 1835 hot melt in their manufacture.
It is the latest of a number of landmark structures which are a visible sign of the hidden applications for hot melts in civil engineering projects.
In Terminal 5, Cellcore is used under the slabs that support the new buildings and surrounding tunnels, including the Tube line extensions. Many of the Cellcore installations are 20m below the surface.
Cellcore CP incorporates a heavy duty EPS panel over a honeycomb structure and is protected by a 2 mm polypropylene (PP) top board. Pressen 1835 is used to bond the honeycomb to the EPS panel and the EPS panel to the PP board.
Beardow Adams, the UK’s largest manufacturer of hot melt adhesives, says that Pressen 1835 is an environmentally neutral, pressure sensitive hot melt that has sufficiently long ‘open time’ to remain molten during complex application procedures, as typified at Cordek. The company also claims that it is clean running, will not ‘string’ and has minimum odour.
Hot melt adhesives like Pressen 1835 have the great advantage of being solventless and versatile. They will bond foils, films, plastics, ceramics, metals, fabrics, felts and non-wovens for products that range from geotextile membranes to the temporary bonding of EPS to steel in the manufacture of concrete floor panels. Other uses include bonding cavity closers, sound deadening panels, industrial roller gates and doors, corrugated roofing panels and waterproof liners.
Cellcore is one in a range of patented products for the construction industry made by Cordek of West Sussex; Beardow Adams has been its major supplier of industrial hot melts for seven years.
Cellcore panels comprise a honeycomb of interlocking expanded polystyrene sections with a solid top board, all manufactured to exacting tolerances. They are designed to deal with the forces created by ground movement – the anti-heave honeycomb compresses and buckles in a pre-determined manner to accommodate movement as it reduces the transmission of forces to the foundations.
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