Trieste Airport Flooring Renovation

Given the importance of the construction of the new Intermodal Hub, Trieste airport was equally in need of major restyling and some refurbishment work. The customer’s request was first and foremost to replace most of the existing flooring, which was made up of old tiles, with a continuous resinous flooring that, in addition to providing superior styling value, proved modern in its appearance, owing to the absence of any joints that would mean easy cleaning, mechanical strength, elasticity and low VOC emissions during installation.

Initially the customer had thought of a solution involving coating the existing tiles with epoxy paint, but this type of solution would not have had the characteristics desired initially, since the system was not elastic and would have had limited resistance to surface scratches. The customer also wanted to perform several maintenance works in the airport (e.g. structural reinforcement of reinforced concrete pillars and beams, reinforcement of joints between beams and pillars, etc.).

Given the customer’s requests and the passage every year of approx. 700,000 people (2,500 people per day), Sika created a system consisting of colored and elastic polyurethane resins: Sika ComfortFloor® PS-23.  Prior to installation of the actual resin flooring, the entire old tile flooring had to be removed. With shot blasting and sanding all the adhesive residue remaining on the substrate was entirely eliminated.

Once all the dust had been removed, the concrete substrate was primed with Sikafloor®-156 thickened with quartz sand at a consumption rate of about 0.4 kg/m². Once the primer had hardened, colored, elastic and low VOC emission two-component polyurethane resin was applied, namely Sikafloor®-330, with a consumption of 2.8 kg/m² for a total thickness of 2 mm. Since this product is self-leveling, and easy to apply, it is perfect for large surfaces in a short space of time. The following day the flooring was protected by a finishing layer, comprising a water-based, colored, matte polyurethane resin, i.e. Sikafloor®-305 W, with consumption of approx. 0.15 kg/m² per coat.

Thanks to the low VOC emission levels of all the above mentioned products, the airport has been able to continue its normal activity without having to close or divert passengers to other gates due to the emissions of solvents that would normally be expected.