Adhesion Strength Change Analysis Based on the Application Surface Area Ratio of Spot-Bonded Tiles on Vertical Walls of High Humidity Facilities

Jung-Hun Lee,Xingyang He,Kyu-Hwan Oh,Bo Jiang,Byoung-Il Kim,Bum-Soo Kim,Sang-Keun Oh

doi:10.3390/app11125357

Abstract

Facility walls with high relative humidity, such as bathrooms or kitchens installed with tiles by spot-bonding methods, become far more prone to defect or adhesion failure when using large or heavy tiles and insufficient application area of adhesive but is still continued to be practiced due to their low costs in the material. Most importantly, if this practice is to be continued, the changes in adhesion strength of the tiles based on different adhesive application areas of adhesives must be clarified such that the very least secure application can be achieved even by using spot-bonding methods. In this regard, an experiment was conducted in this study where tile-adhered specimens with different adhesive-applied area ratios (AR) of 60 ± 2%, 80 ± 2%, and 100% were prepared. Tile adhesion strength was subsequently measured, after sectioning the entire surface of the tile into 40 pieces. Experimental results showed that the adhesion strength above the standard criteria could be achieved for about 75% of the entire tile with AR 100% conditioning, followed by 30% of the entire tile with AR 80 ± 2% conditioning, and 20% of the entire tile for AR 60 ± 2% conditioning. Further analysis showed that with AR 80 ± 2% and AR 60 ± 2% conditions, the overall adhesion strength decreased by the range of about 59–67% compared to the AR 100% application conditions. The results of the study intended to provide an analytical basis of guidelines and risks with the potential usage of spot-bonding and should only be used if AR 100% application is planned.

Highlights

Recent trends indicate that larger sizes and shapes of tiles are more commonly used in architecture [1,2]
The change in adhesion strength according to the reduction of the adhesion area of the stubborn mortar in relation to the detachment defects of the indoor wall tiles was analyzed, and the following conclusions were drawn: (1) Through the ISO standard adhesion strength evaluation method it was confirmed that the spot-bonding method is able to secure stable adhesion, but only in sections where the spot-bonding mortar was securely installed, leading to the hypothesis that, as long as a higher surface area application of the cementitious adhesive is achieved, a stable installation of the tile by spot-bonding can be achieved
(2) By using a new evaluation method consisting of sectioning the tile into individual pieces across the entire tile surface, an adhesion strength evaluation in the spotbonding method using large tiles was made possible by schematic mapping of the tile with high and concentrated adhesion strength

Summary

Introduction

Recent trends indicate that larger sizes and shapes of tiles are more commonly used in architecture [1,2]. The review of general defects showed that the rate of “indoor tile adhesion failure” occupied about 10% of the total number of defects found in residential buildings [5], and the rate of tile-adhesion failure in bathrooms was the highest [6]. Proposed that if the spot-bonding method was inevitably used, a proper evaluation or verification in the field should be conducted to shed light on the risks of the spot-bonding method and provide an optimal adhesive application area ratio. For the countries that still use spot-bonding methods for tile installation, this study offered an analysis of the change in overall tile adhesion strength according to the changes of tohf e20 total adhesive application surface area for spot-bonding methods.

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion