Mats made from reclaimed tire carcass treads

Abstract

This invention relates to floor mat units made from single layer tread strips cut from discarded tire carcasses having attached thereto a web layer on a tread strip surface opposite to the tire tread and their method of manufacture. These mat units have a flexible, resilient, skid-proof and easy to walk on tire tread surface of long life which can bear heavier loads and longer life when constructed of steel belted tires, which provide convenient and low cost internal reinforcement wires. In different embodiments, the web strip is formed from either flexible plastic or fiber glass web material or from wire mesh stiff webbing material. The mat units comprise at least two side-by-side layer strips of tire treads secured on a mesh sheet, and thus can be constructed in various sizes and aspect ratios. For example parquet nine inch by nine inch type floor tiles have two four and a half inch strips, nine inches long attached to a nine inch by nine inch web sheet. Larger parquet type units may be twenty four by twenty four inch in size and made of four side by side tire strips with a width of six inches and a length of twenty four inches attached to a twenty four inch by twenty four inch web layer. Mat units may be custom styled with dimensions to fit automobile floors, pickup truck surfaces, and door mats of conventional size.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD

[0001] This invention relates to improvement of the environment by finding ways to eliminate tire carcasses that serve as breeding grounds for mosquitos, and more particularly it relates to manufacturing protective flexible surfaced floor covering mats made from reclaimed discarded tire carcasses having mat outer surfaces formed of tire tread strips cut from the reclaimed tire carcasses.

BACKGROUND

[0002] It is well recognized at this stage of the art that tire carcasses are piled in outdoor dumps where they accumulate water thereby creating breeding grounds for mosquitos. Reducing the piles of carcasses by making useful articles of manufacture therefrom is an environmental improvement that significantly aids in the elimination of such diseases as the Nile Virus spread to humans, animals and birds by mosquitos.

[0003] Furthermore these discarded tire carcasses provide an inexpensive raw material that inherently has the properties of long life, a flexible and resilient tire tread surface, particularly advantageous as a non-slip footing in door mats for example. The internal steel wire reinforcement from steel belted tires additionally increase the load weights and lifetime of mats in applications that expect heavy duty service.

[0004] It has been proposed that building products and mats be made from discarded tire carcasses in U.S. Pat. No. 6,372,069, Apr. 16, 2002, issued to Dennis P. Walls for PRODUCT AND METHOD FOR USED TIRES. Herein products made from tire treads are beams, posts, building materials, or mats formed from narrow lengths of either sidewall strips or tread strips cut from discarded tire carcasses, which are required to be vulcanized with two strips sealed together back-to-back forming stiff double layer strips with treads outwardly facing on both sides. Thus the tire strip elements are inherently stiff and un-flexible. Any mats formed are narrow and longitudinal in shape. There is no provision for single layer flexible tread products that conform to a mating surface of a porch, sidewalk, pickup truck bed, automobile floor, or the like. Nor is there any teaching of combining strips side by side for making wide mats with an aspect ratio useful for door-mats, floor-mats in automobiles or pick-up floor surfaces, or for providing floors constructed of floor tiles having a flexible, resilient non-slip uppermost surface provided by the tire treads.

[0005] Thus this invention corrects the aforesaid defects of those prior art mats made from tire tread strips formed of two plies of tire tread strips vulcanized together with outwardly facing tire treads, and provides mats having un-limited widths, high flexibility, light weight and unlimited generally quadratic geometric shapes. Therefore, this invention introduces improved mat products ideally suited to serve as automobile floor cushions, pickup truck bed protective mats, door mats, and parquet style floor covering tiles, for example.

[0006] It is therefore an objective of this invention to provide improved and inexpensive protective mats made of thin flexible and resilient strips of discarded tire carcasses that can be mass produced at competitive prices to use up significant quantities of tire carcasses stored in the outside environment, thus reducing risk of epidemics carried by mosquitos breeding in the tire carcasses.

DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION

[0007] This invention modifies single layer tire tread strips cut from discarded tire carcasses to adapt the tire strips into manufactured products having utility as thin mats and floor coverings in general presenting a slip-proof and resiliently yielding surface. The improvements permit mats of various quadrilateral configuration to be attained in a unit configuration by placing several side-by-side tread strips on a retaining surface that holds several tire tread strips together in a pre-formed mat unit.

[0008] One preferred inexpensive and versatile embodiment thus has a lower surface flexible web, such as a plastic or fiber glass mesh, affixed to the tire tread strip, typically with side-by-side strips. Such a unit expedites handling the end products and retains side-by-side tread strips in place with the ability to conform with surface variations and contours of porch surfaces, automobile floor surfaces, and the like. This light weight resilient and flexible web configuration permits mats to adapt closely to a wooden deck surface for example that may not have exactly level side by side deck planking.

[0009] When flat surfaces are available, the web can be rigid, by using wire mesh for example. This creates utility as inexpensive parquet style flooring. The wire mesh keeps the mats light, strong and inexpensive in those applications where flexibility of the mat surface contour is not necessary. In some applications solid rigid sheets of plastic or metal may serve as the lower surface layer rather than webs.

[0010] An advantageous embodiment of a larger surface area mat unit thus comprises two or more side-by-side tread strips affixed to a single backing sheet covering the entire mat surface area. When flexible backing webs are used, the side by side strips may be relatively folded or bent away from each other during handling and installation. Typically a mat could have one tire tread strip extended vertically to serve as a base-plate panel around the sides of a room. Also plastic or fiber glass web layers can maintain a desirable retaining friction surface on the underside of the mat well adapted to receive an adhesive surface for securing a mat unit in place.

[0011] It is clear therefore that mats do not have to be limited in width to the width of a single tire tread strip cut from the tire carcass. The mats readily then can attain significant area quadri-lateral shape configurations by way of the surface layers affixed to the bottom web surface having two or more side-by-side tire tread strips arranged in a mat unit.

[0012] Another significant advantage of the mat units of this invention is that they are reinforced by the steel belt wiring of the tire tread strips thereby having longer life and bearing greater loads without elimination of the resilient surface effect or flexibility.

[0013] The backing sheet to the tire tread lower surface is readily affixed to the tire tread strips at low cost with adhesives or vulcanization to provide the low product cost advantage derived from the formerly manufactured tire carcass raw materials.

[0014] Other objects, features and advantages of the invention will be found throughout the following drawings, specification and claims.

THE DRAWINGS

[0015] In the accompanying drawings similar reference characters found in the several views represent similar features to facilitate comparison.

[0016] FIG. 1 is a plan view of a mat configuration showing the tread configuration on the upper surface of a multiple side-by-side tire tread strip mat unit having the tire tread strips held together by a lowermost web surface;

[0017] FIG. 2 is a plan view looking downwardly into the lower web surface layer of FIG. 1;

[0018] FIG. 3 is a plan view, partly in section and partly broken away, showing the mat unit configuration of FIG. 1, with one vertically extending tire strip panel serving for example as a base-board member about the sidewalls of a room;

[0019] FIG. 4 is an exploded end view section view of a mat unit showing a protective covering member at the right side;

[0020] FIG. 5 is a plan view of a nine inch by nine inch parquet tile embodiment of the invention, partly broken away to show lowermost web and adhesive layers; and

[0021] FIG. 6 is a plan view presenting a twenty four by twenty four inch flexible and resilient rubber surface on this mat unit embodiment of the invention.

SPECIFICATION

[0022] FIGS. 1 and 2 are respectively top and bottom plan views of a preferred embodiment of a mat unit configuration suitable for conforming to the contour of an automobile floorboard having three side-by-side four inch wide and sixteen inch long tire tread strips 15, 16, 17 with the tread surface exposed (FIG. 1) as the working upper surface. The gaps between her separate tire strips are exaggerated to better illustrate the web layer on the backside of the tread strip. The tire tread strips 15, 16 and 17 are secured on the lower surface opposite to the tread surface to the web backing sheet 18 such as by adhesives or vulcanization. One typical securing adhesive is a “3M” “Scotch Grip” brand fast drying, heat curable adhesive that resists weathering, water, and oil, which is commercially available from Minnesota Mining & Manufacture Corporation.

[0023] The web 18 is typically a fiber glass or nylon mesh which coupled to the flexibility of a single layer of the tire tread strip conforms readily with different surface contour shapes, such as when used as a floor mat in an automobile. For flat surface utility such as on concrete, wooden or asphalt floors, an inexpensive and light weight wire mesh commonly available for fencing provides rigidity.

[0024] FIG. 3 shows the lower tire tread strip 17 moved vertically as permitted with a flexible web 18. This feature permits convenience when handling and could stand vertically at room wall edges of a floor serving as a baseboard member. Wires 19 protruding from the uppermost edge and the right end of tread strip 17 reinforce the mat unit giving it longer life and ability to handle greater loads. That feature comes inherently without extra cost from steel belted tire raw material. Since the wires are sharp and could cause damage to bare hands when manually handled, a protective cover member such as a plastic film or other suitable edge member with an adhesive self-sticking layer may be added to cover the exposed ends of the extending wires. Alternatively, the edges may be buffed by a grinding wheel to remove extending wires 19.

[0025] As shown in the exploded view of FIG. 4, the protective cover member 20 may comprise a metallic or extruded U-shaped member to be frictionally fit over the mat unit thickness or adhered thereto by an adhesive coating. In this embodiment of FIG. 4, the tire strip layer 15 has a flexible plastic web layer 18 with an adhesive on both upper and lower layers to retain a lowermost stiff metal sheet 21.

[0026] FIG. 5 represents a parquet type floor tile mat typically having an outer dimension of nine inches by nine inches. Thus, two tire tread strips 15′, 16′, four and a half inches wide and nine inches long, have a nine inch by nine inch stiff wire mesh web 22 attached adhesively to the lower smooth surface of both tire treads 15′, 16′. The bottom adhesive layer 23 adheres to a floor surface (not shown). A typical adhesive for this layer 23 is commercially available for this utility from Minnesota Mining and Manufacture Corporation under the trade name brand “3M” adhesive transfer tapes. Such tapes have high bonding strengths, sustain high temperatures and bond to plastics such as asphalt floors, as well as cement and wooden floors.

[0027] FIG. 6 represents a larger mat unit 25 twenty four inches by twenty four inches in dimension. Four tire tread strips four inches in width and twenty four inches in length are formed in a mat unit as hereinbefore described with a rigid metal mesh webbing layer. The sizes of the mat units are variable as determined by variations of the number of side-by-side tire tread strips, their length and widths. Tire tread strips from two to six inches in width are readily cut from the tire carcasses.

[0028] Having thus improved the state of the mat arts to be more versatile in size, flexure, resilience, strength, long life, low weight yet being inexpensive because of the nature of the raw material discarded tire carcasses. This gives the additional advantage to this invention of removing tire carcasses from the environment to reduce the likelihood of disease from mosquito breeding beds in water collected in the tire carcasses.

[0029] Those novel features of this invention are defined with particularity in the following claims reflecting the nature and spirit of the invention.

Claims

1. A mat unit comprising in combination, at least one single layer strip of tire tread cut from a discarded tire carcass, tread face up and secured on the opposite face to an underlying mesh layer.

2. The mat unit defined in claim 1 further comprising at least two side-by-side strips of tire tread secured to a single underlying mesh layer.

3. The mat unit defined in claim 1 wherein the underlying mesh layer is stiff.

4. The mat unit defined in claim 3 wherein the underlying mesh layer comprised a wire mesh.

5. The mat unit defined in claim 1 wherein the mesh layer is flexible.

6. The mat unit defined in claim 5 further comprising at least two side-by-side strips of tire tread secured in a planar configuration on a single flexible mesh layer sheet of established configuration, wherein the side-by-side strips are held in a configuration permitting the side-by-side tire strips to be flexed away from the planar configuration.

7. The mat unit defined in claim 6 further comprising a layer of rigid material attached to the mesh sheet facing opposite the treads on the tire strips.

8. The mat unit defined in claim 1 further comprising steel belted tire carcass tread strips, and protective covering means disposed along at least one mat edge having exposed ends of steel belt wires for protection during manual handling of the mat unit.

9. The mat unit defined in claim 8 wherein the protective covering comprises a U-channel shaped rigid member.

10. The mat unit defined in claim 9 wherein the protective covering comprises an extruded plastic member.

11. The mat unit of claim 8 wherein the protective covering comprises a flexible elastic sheet with a self adhesive coating.

12. The mat unit defined in claim 7 wherein the rigid member comprises a metallic member.

13. The mat unit defined in claim 1 wherein the tire tread surface opposite to the tread is secured to the mesh layer by an adhesive coating.

14. The mat unit defined in claim 3 further comprising an adhesive coating carried by the stiff mesh layer for adhesively securing the mat unit to a floor surface.

15. The method of manufacturing improved rubber floor mat units having a resilient and flexible protective upper surface comprising the steps of cutting a strip of tire tread from a discarded tire carcass and securing to a single layer of said tire tread strip on a surface opposite the tire tread a web layer.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the step of securing the web layer further comprises securing a flexible web layer to the tire tread strip.

17. The method of claim 15 wherein the step of securing the web layer further comprises securing a rigid web layer to the tire tread strip.

18. The method of claim 15 further comprising the steps of selecting a steel belt carcass which at strip edges expose extending wire ends, and buffing the strip edges to remove the extending wire ends.