MATRIX FOR IMPRINTING A RAISED PATTERN ON A COATING

Abstract

A mat for imprinting a texture on a coating, notably a coating applied to a wall, a floor or a ceiling, includes a surface with a random texture to be imprinted, formed by a set of interpenetrating unitary elements.

Claims

1. A mat intended for imprinting a texture on a coating, the coating to be applied to a wall, a floor or a ceiling or to a prefabricated element used in the construction of a wall, a floor or a ceiling, said mat having a surface provided with a random texture to be imprinted, formed by a set of interpenetrating unitary elements.

2. The mat as claimed in claim 1, wherein the random texture comprises at least one first group of unitary elements and at least one second group of unitary elements of identical shape to those of the first group but having a different orientation to that of those of the first group, the unitary elements of each of the at least one first group and of the at least one second group being distributed in a random manner over the surface of the mat.

3. The mat as claimed in claim 1, wherein all the unitary elements of the random texture are of identical shape.

4. The mat as claimed in claim 3, wherein all the unitary elements of the random texture are of identical shape with varying dimensions.

5. The mat as claimed in claim 3, wherein all the unitary elements of the random texture are of identical shape with identical dimensions.

6. The mat as claimed in claim 1, wherein the random texture to be imprinted is an invisible interpenetration texture.

7. The mat as claimed in claim 1, wherein the unitary elements are of polyhedral shape, the edges of which can be straight or curved, and the faces of which can be plane or curved.

8. The mat as claimed claim 1, wherein the random texture to be imprinted is a visible interpenetration texture.

9. The mat as claimed claim 1, wherein an average visible height of the unitary elements of the random texture to be imprinted is between 0.5 and 50 mm inclusive.

10. The mat as claimed in claim 1, wherein a maximum visible width of the unitary elements of the random texture to be imprinted is between 1 and 100 mm inclusive.

11. The mat as claimed in claim 1, wherein the surface with the random texture has a total surface area between 0.1 and 1.5 m.sup.2 inclusive.

12. The mat as claimed in claim 1, wherein the random texture to be imprinted includes between 10 and 10 000 unitary elements per m.sup.2 of surface area.

13. A tool for imprinting a texture on a coating, the coating to be applied to a wall, a floor or a ceiling or to a prefabricated element used in the construction of a wall, a floor or a ceiling, comprising a mat as claimed in claim 1.

14. A substrate chosen from a wall, a floor or a ceiling or a prefabricated element intended to form a wall, a floor or a ceiling, said substrate being coated with a coating or said element having a surface layer featuring an imprinted texture that can be produced by a mat as claimed in claim 1, wherein the imprinted texture corresponds to the imprint left by a random texture to be imprinted, formed by a set of interpenetrating unitary elements.

15. A method of imprinting a texture on a coating, the coating to be applied to a given area of a wall, a floor or a ceiling or to a prefabricated element used in the construction of a wall, a floor or a ceiling, said imprinting being done with a tool comprising the mat as claimed in claim 1, method comprising a step consisting in applying the tool to a plurality of treatment zones to imprint said texture, the tool being applied in a random manner, until the entire surface of said zone to be imprinted is covered with the pattern.

16. The imprinting method as claimed in claim 15, wherein the application step is carried out for at least some of the overlapping treatment zones.

17. The mat as claimed in claim 7, wherein the unitary elements are pyramidal.

18. The mat as claimed in claim 7, wherein the unitary elements have as a base a polygon with at least 3 sides.

19. The mat as claimed claim 9, wherein an average visible height of the unitary elements of the texture to be imprinted is between 1 and 20 mm inclusive.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0051] The invention will be clearly understood and its advantages will become more apparent on reading the following detailed description of a number of embodiments shown by way of nonlimiting example. The description refers to the appended drawings, in which:

[0052] FIG. 1 shows a mat according to a first embodiment of the invention;

[0053] FIG. 2 shows a unitary element of the texture from FIG. 1, seen from above;

[0054] FIG. 3 shows in more detail the texture of the mat from FIG. 1;

[0055] FIG. 4 is a view in section taken along the transverse line IV-IV in FIG. 3;

[0056] FIG. 5 shows unitary elements forming the texture from FIG. 1, with identical shapes and dimensions but different orientations;

[0057] FIG. 6 shows different treatment zones of a coating treated using a mat according to the invention;

[0058] FIG. 7 shows part of a substrate coated with a coating layer having an imprinted texture produced using a mat according to FIG. 1;

[0059] FIG. 8 shows a texture surface of a mat according to a second embodiment of the invention;

[0060] FIG. 9 shows a texture surface of a mat according to a third embodiment of the invention;

[0061] FIG. 10 shows a texture surface of a mat according to a fourth embodiment of the invention;

[0062] FIG. 11 shows a texture surface of a mat according to a fifth embodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

[0063] FIG. 1 shows a mat 100 according to a first embodiment, intended for imprinting a texture on a coating, notably a faade of a building.

[0064] The mat 100 includes a surface 10 with a so-called random texture 12 to be imprinted, formed by a set of interpenetrating unitary elements 14.

[0065] The textured surface typically has a total surface area between 0.1 and 1.5 m.sup.2 inclusive.

[0066] In the example, the texture is a so-called positive texture, formed by the random juxtaposition of unitary elements 14 over a so-called base surface SB of the mat (shown by way of illustration in FIG. 4).

[0067] In this instance, the unitary elements 14 of the texture 12 from FIG. 1 are pyramids of the type shown from above in FIG. 2, with bases in the shape of a regular hexagon.

[0068] FIG. 2 shows a pyramid of this kind from above, and FIG. 3 shows in more detail the texture of the mat and the interpenetration of the unitary elements.

[0069] For a clearer understanding, the profile of the texture of the mat in section taken along the line IV-IV in FIG. 3, orthogonal to the base surface SB of the mat, is shown in FIG. 4. In that figure, the elements in dashed line are elements that do not exist in the final volume. These are imaginary lines that serve only to illustrate how the general structure of the texture is constituted.

[0070] The three hexagonal pyramids 141, 142 and 143 seen in FIG. 4 will be described in more detail by way of example.

[0071] In the example, the base surface SB is a plane surface, defined when modeling the mat. The texture is formed by juxtaposing the pyramids in a random manner over this base surface, the bases of the pyramids therefore coinciding with the base surface of the mat.

[0072] As shown in FIG. 4, the absolute heights of the pyramids 141, 142, 143, in other words the height of their top relative to the base surface B, are respectively denoted Ha.sub.141, Ha.sub.142 and Ha.sub.143 and are identical with Ha.sub.141=Ha.sub.142=Ha.sub.143=Ha. The tops of the pyramids forming the texture to be imprinted are therefore defined in the same plane P, shown in dashed line in FIG. 4.

[0073] According to the invention, each pyramid forming the texture to be imprinted interpenetrates with at least one adjacent pyramid. The pyramids therefore merge locally and each pyramid extends over an own zone ZP, on which the texture corresponds to its own texture, and over an interpenetration zone ZI, in which the pyramid merges with one or more adjacent pyramids and where the texture corresponds to the texture of one or the other pyramid.

[0074] There can in particular be defined, for each pyramid 14, a continuous interpenetration line LI closed on itself delimiting the own zone ZP. By way of example, the own zone ZP.sub.142 of the pyramid 142 is referenced in FIG. 3 and the interpenetration line LI.sub.142 of said pyramid is shown in bold in that same figure. The own zones and interpenetration zones ZP.sub.142 and ZI.sub.142, respectively, of the pyramid 142 and the interpenetration lines LI.sub.142 are moreover identified in FIG. 4.

[0075] Here the pyramids 14 interpenetrate invisibly. In other words, the part of each pyramid 14 extending beyond its own zone ZP can no longer be distinguished, because it merges with the own zones of the adjacent pyramids.

[0076] The absolute height Ha, defined above, is therefore difficult to measure on the finished product.

[0077] It is nevertheless possible to measure the average visible height of the texture, in the following manner based on the profile of the mat (as seen in section taken along the line IV-IV).

[0078] An element of the profile is defined as the succession of one projection of the profile and an adjacent recess of the profile. In FIG. 4, an element of the profile is defined between the two lines D1 and D2 and shown in bold.

[0079] The visible height HV of this element of the profile is defined as the height measured between the highest point PH of that element (top of the projection) and its lowest point PB (bottom of the recess).

[0080] Finally, the average visible height of the pyramids of the texture is defined as the arithmetic mean of the absolute values of the visible heights HV of the various elements of the profile over a base length of 10 centimeters. This average visible height is for example between 0.5 and 50 mm inclusive, preferably between 1 and 10 mm inclusive.

[0081] The visible width of a pyramid 14 corresponds to the diameter of the smallest circle in which the own zone ZP of said pyramid 14 is inscribed. In FIG. 3, there has been represented by way of example the visible width LV of the pyramid 141.

[0082] The maximum visible width of the pyramids 14 of the texture is typically between 1 and 100 mm inclusive.

[0083] The texture to be imprinted advantageously includes between 10 and 10 000 unitary elements per m.sup.2 of surface area.

[0084] Note that in the particular example shown, the pyramids 14 do not all have the same orientation.

[0085] In particular, as shown in FIG. 3, here the texture comprises a first group of pyramids A (to which belongs in particular the pyramid 142), a second group of pyramids B (to which belong in particular the pyramids 141 and 143) and a third group of pyramids C of the same shape and size but with different orientations, the elements of each group being distributed in a random manner over the surface of the mat.

[0086] In FIG. 5 there is shown a pyramid of the first group A (referenced A), a pyramid of the second group B (referenced B) and a pyramid of the second group C (referenced C), in a system of axes X, Y, Z. The bases of the pyramids A, B, C are defined in the plane X, Y. The axes of the pyramids are parallel to the axis Z.

[0087] As is clear from FIG. 5, the base of the pyramid B is here pivoted relative to that of the pyramid A by an angle strictly between 0 and 30 inclusive about an axis parallel to Z, in the counterclockwise direction. In the same plane, the base of the pyramid C is pivoted relative to that of the pyramid A by an angle strictly between 0 and 30 inclusive around an axis parallel to Z, in the clockwise direction. Obviously, this example is not of a limiting nature, and the orientation differences between the various groups of unitary elements could vary greatly (with different angles in the same direction of pivoting, for example).

[0088] The texture 12 as defined above is capable of being superimposed on itself without visible joins and without destroying its legibility. During the matting operation of which a step is shown in FIG. 6, the substrate surface S covered with green (i.e. not yet hardened) coating E is treated over different zones Ti (hereinafter treatment zones) partially intersecting (i.e. partially superimposed). Here by treated is meant imprinted by application of the mat 100. Despite the overlapping of the treatment zones, the imprinted texture is very homogeneous. The superimposition zones cannot be distinguished visually from the non-superimposition zones. The drawing represented in this figure constitutes the total texture composed by the successive applications of the mat, as seen via the coating E the position of which is situated in front of the plane of the paper.

[0089] A substrate S with a texture R imprinted using said mat described above is shown in FIG. 7. The texture R imprinted on the substrate S corresponds to a negative image of the texture 12 of the mat to be imprinted.

[0090] The example described with reference to FIGS. 1 to 7 is not of a limiting kind, however, and in accordance with variant embodiments the texture can in particular be formed of unitary elements with the same orientation but varying dimensions, or unitary elements of the same shape, with the same dimensions and even the same orientation, or elements with different shapes, dimensions and orientations, etc.

[0091] FIG. 8 shows a mat 200 in accordance with a second embodiment, comprising a texture surface formed by a set of rounded protuberances with the same shape and the same dimensions, interpenetrating in a random manner and invisibly.

[0092] FIGS. 9 to 11 show texture surfaces of matrices according to other embodiments of the invention.

[0093] In contrast to the first two embodiments described above, the textures shown here are textures with visible interpenetration. In the interpenetration zones, it is possible to distinguish the parts of one and the other of the interpenetrating unitary elements.

[0094] In the FIG. 9 embodiment, for example, the mat 300 has a texture formed by a set of interpenetrating unitary elements, each unitary element being constituted of a plurality of (here six) concentric ribs. Here the unitary element is formed by a circular central rib and five hexagonal ribs with curved sides.

[0095] There have been shown in bold in the figure the peripheral edges of two interpenetrating unitary elements 341, 342. The cross-hatched area corresponds to the interpenetration zone ZI of the unitary element 341 with the unitary element 342. In this area, it is however possible to distinguish the ribs of the adjacent element 342.

[0096] In the FIG. 10 embodiment, the mat 400 has a texture formed by a set of interpenetrating unitary elements, each unitary element being constituted of a plurality of (here four) concentric circular ribs.

[0097] In the FIG. 11 embodiment, the mat 500 has a texture formed by a set of interpenetrating unitary elements, each unitary element being constituted of a plurality of (here two) concentric circular ribs.