Our Technology
PURLoc is manufactured by the pultrusion process and is designed to be able to weather the harsh marine environment. Many traditional materials used to build seawalls like wood, steel and even concrete will corrode, rust and deteriorate over time. The shortened life cycle of traditional materials has increased costs for maintenance and replacement. PURLoc sheet pile does not leach any chemicals making it environmentally safe. PURLoc is a cost effective and long term solution to any waterfront project.
PURLoc is the first composite sheet pile to use a patented urethane injection box. What makes our injection design significant is that it permits us to inject resin through the most dense layers of rovings and fabrics. Other methods of pultrusion use a bath system to incorporate the resin into the fiberglass which does not achieve the "wet out" necessary to meet the mechanical properties needed on a consistent basis. The combination of using a "pure" polyurethane and an injection system allows us to have a matrix of fiberglass content at 78% versus 50"%. This gives us properties that are 30% stronger than any other FRP sheet pile with the same physical properties. Compare our mechanical properties to similiar profiles and you will see that our MOE and Tensile strengths are much higher.
Specifications
In order to achieve maximum performance in the field, composite sheet pile must balance 3 important design criteria.
Geometry--The shape, including wall thickness, depth of section, angle of corrugation, interlock design, and panel width are important in designing the ideal wall system.
Resin System--The resin system is the "glue" that will hold the product together over time. Polyester resins are a bad choice as they are hydrophilic and will absorb water over time and breakdown when exposed to high PH levels and salt water. The ideal resin is a "pure" polyurethane which will posess high resiliency in impact strength, and add higher MOE and Tensile strength.
Fiber Architecture--The fiber reinforcements are part of an overall architecture design of rovings and mats that work together, balancing the structural integrity of the composite material. Rovings provide strength in the machine direction while the mats provide strength in the cross direction.
The PURLoc composite sheet pile represents the pinnacle of performance in today's composite industry. This first ever infrastructure-grade marine composite is patent pending. Its one-of-kind design places PURloc in a class of its own.
PURLoc was designed over a 2 year period using new technology for polyurethane injection and "pure" polyurethane resins. After hundreds of test runs and FEA modeling the best composite sheet pile has finally been introduced since 2010.