Material and use of it for lining a tunnel

Abstract: The invention relates to interior material (10) for tunnels comprising a laminate, in which a hard substrate (1), glass woven fabric (2) arranged on the substrate (1), and fluororesin film (3) arranged on the glass woven fabric (2) are integrally laminated, which is installed on tunnel inner walls of highway tunnels and the like. This enables extremely simple cleaning of the surface and provides excellent fire resistance and lighting effects.

Description: The present invention relates to the interior lining material installed on a tunnel inner wall and the use of this interior lining material in a tunnel interior construction. To the inner wall surface of the tunnel, such as highway tunnels, interior lining material is frequently installed in view of the appearance and lighting effects. However, the surface is excessively contaminated within a short period due to adherernce of soot and dust contained in exhaust gas of passing vehicles and loses the interior function, requiring periodic cleaning. However, because conventional interior lining material causes difficulty in removing stains, cleaning operation requires a lot of time and labor, and the use of detergent produces problems of secondary pollution due to discharge of cleaning water. A tunnel interior lining material according to the preamble of claim 1 is known from JP-A-04143400 and is formed of a composite metal sheet comprising an aluminum plate having a coloured film and a fluororesin layer on its surface. The first object of the present invention is to provide tunnel interior material and tunnel interior construction which enable extremely easy cleaning of the surface and provide excellent fire resistance and lighting effects. The second object of the present invention is to provide tunnel interior material and tunnel interior construction which deny easy adhesion of soot and dust on the interior surface, enable the adhering stains to be easily washed out with ordinary water, and do not require scrubbing with a brush, but only require very simple cleaning operation: that is, satisfactory cleaning effects can be obtained by only allowing road sprinklers to travel and sprinkle water over the interior material surface. The third object of the present invention is to remarkably improve the cleaning efficiency as compared with the conventional interior material and interior construction, avoid secondary pollution by detergents because no detergent is necessary to use, and achieve excellent fire resistance of the interior as well as satisfactory lighting effects. The fourth object of the present invention is to provide the interior material which can be easily installed to the tunnel wall surface. These objects are solved according to the present invention by a tunnel interior lining material comprising the features of Claim 1. The preferred uses of such a material according to the present invention are described in claims 2 to 4. While the novel features of the invention are set forth particularly in the appended claims, the invention, both as to organization and content, will be better understood and appreciated along with other objects and features thereof, from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the drawings. Fig. 1 shows a fragmentary diagonal view of the tunnel interior lining material according to one embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 2 shows a fragmentary cross sectional view of the interior lining material. Fig.3 shows a fragmentary diagonal view showing the installation of the interior lining material on the tunnel inner wall. Fig.4 4 shows the cross sectional view showing the tunnel interior construction with the interior lining material. It will be recognized that some or all the figures are schematic representations for purposes of illustration and do not necessarily depict the actual relative sizes or locations of the elements shown. Fig. 1 and 2 show the tunnel interior lining material 10 related to one embodiment of the present invention. As shown in the figures, this interior lining material 10 comprises a laminate in which glass woven fabric 2 and fluororesin film 3 are integrally laminated on the hard substrate 1, and is formed into a rectangle of about 1-2 meters in height (h) and of about 1-5 meters in width (w), with the longitudinal side curved and the fluororesin film 3 side formed in concave, to fit to the curvature of the inner wall surface of the applied tunnel, on the top and the bottom of which through holes 4... are drilled for screwing. It is desirable to set the thickness of the hard substrate 1 to be about 2-8 mm, that of glass woven fabric 2 to be about 0.1-2 mm, that of fluororesin film 3 to be about 0.1-1 mm, and the overall thickness of the interior lining material 10 to be about 3-10 mm. There is no special restriction to the material of the hard substrate I but hard synthetic resin is suitable, and the resin may contain aggregate, filler, reinforcing fiber, and the like, and the substrate 1 itself may be a laminated sheet comprising multiple types of material. For the material of fluororesin film 3, there is no special restriction, but examples of fluororesin film include ethylene tetrafluoride resin (commercial name: TEFLON PTFE, FLUON, etc.), copolymer resin of ethylene tetrafluoride and perfluoroalkyl vinyl ether (commercial name: TEFLON PFA), ternary copolymer resin of tetrafluoro resin, perfluoroalkyl vinyl ether, and propylene hexafluoride (commercial name: TEFLON EPE), copolymer resin of ethylene tetrafluoride and propylene hexafluoride (commercial name: TEFLON FEP), copolymer resin of ethylene tetrafluoride and ethylene (commercial name: TEFSEL), and the like. To join the hard substrate 1 with glass woven fabric 2, adhesive is generally used, but crimping by heating may be possible when the hard substrate 1 comprises thermosetting synthetic resin. Glass woven fabric 2 and fluororesin film 3 may be heat-crimped so that they are joined by anchor effects in which glass woven fabric 2 bites into the resin layer of the said film, but other joining means may be adopted as required. To fix the above tunnel interior lining material 10 onto the tunnel inner wall surface, mounting frames 7, 7 with screw holes 7a ... are arranged horizontally in advance at the top and the bottom positions along the inner wall 6 of the tunnel 5 as shown in Figure 3, and the interior lining material 10 is fixed to these mounting frames 7, 7 with machine screws 8.., using the through holes 4... on the top and bottom positions. For the machine screw 8, it is recommended to use fluororesin screws from the viewpoint of corrosion resistance and antifouling property. Figure 4 shows the cross section of the tunnel 5 after installation, in which the interior lining material 10 is installed on the inner walls 6 on both sides. Numeral 9 in Figure 4 shows the lighting fixtures. In the above embodiment, the interior lining material 10 for tunnels curved in the longitudinal direction is shown but the interior lining material may be a flat plate. Therefore, to install a flat-plate-form interior lining material on the surface of the curved tunnel inner wall, the interior lining material may be arranged to provide a clearance with the inner wall 6 surface as shown with imaginary lines in Figure 4. To install the interior lining material, it is possible to adopt various means such as fitting, bonding with adhesives, and the like, in addition to screwing as described in the embodiment. The surface on the fluororesin film 3 side of the tunnel interior lining material 10 of the present invention is difficult to attract soot or dust because fluororesin is extremely inactive both chemically and physically, and even if soot or dust may adhere, they can be easily washed out with ordinary water because of weak interaction with the surface. Consequently, in the tunnel 5 on the inner wall surface of which this interior lining material 10 is installed, no detergent or no scrubbing with brushes is required to wash out contaminants on the interior lining material surface. It can be easily cleaned only by, for example, allowing a road sprinkler to travel and sprinkle water over the interior lining material surface. The interior lining material is designed to enable the hard substrate 1 to bear the shape holding strength as a sheet but because glass woven fabric 2 exists between the substrate 1 and fluororesin film 3, the interior lining material provides excellent fire resistance, and because the surface on the fluororesin film 3 side assumes a milk white color, the interior lining material has good lighting effects as tunnel interior finish work.

Claims: A tunnel interior lining material (10) comprising a laminate having a hard substrate (1) and a fluororesin film (3), characterized by an intermediate layer of a glass woven fabric (2) arranged between the substrate (1) and the fluororesin film (3), all of which are integrally laminated. Use of a tunnel interior lining material according to claim 1 on an inner wall of a tunnel (5), the fluororesin film side of the interior lining material (10) being directed to a space in the inside of the tunnel (5). The use of a tunnel interior lining material according to claim 2, wherein the tunnel interior lining material (10) is fixed to mounting frames (7) with machine screws (8), and the mounting frames (7) have screw holes (70) for the machine screws (8) and are installed beforehand on the inner wall of the tunnel (5) in parallel to one another in a running direction of the tunnel (5). The use of a tunnel interior lining according to claim 3, wherein the machine screws (8) are formed with a fluororesin material.

Inventors: FUKUMOTO MASAFUMI, FUKUMOTO, MASAFUMI
Applicants: NISSHIN KAGAKU KOGYO KK, NISSHIN CHEMICAL INDUSTRY CO., LTD.
Application year: 1993
Main classification: E21D11
IPC codes: E21D11