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US 2009/0202298 A1Published application
Wet Reflective Pavement Marking and Method
AssigneeFortson-Peeek Company, Inc.
InventorMark S. Bjorklund
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Reflective pellets (16) are formed by extrusion of reflective micro beads (26) in a thermoplastic (20), removal of the surface layer of the pellets so as to expose the reflective beads at the surface of the pellets and applying the reflective pellets to the base line (14) of the striping applied to a paved road.
Claims27
A process of making reflective pellets for reflective marking of highways, comprising:
- forming a mixture of thermoplastic, a pigment and a plasticizer,
- heating the mixture to a molten state,
- progressively moving the heated mixture through a die to form a plastic extrudate,
- as the heated mixture approaches the die progressively adding reflective beads to the mixture such that the plastic extrudate formed by the die includes a plurality of the reflective beads,
- immersing the plastic extrudate in a cooling liquid,
- while the plastic extrudate is immersed in the cooling liquid cutting the plastic extrudate into lengths approximately the same as the breadth of the plastic extrudate to form the plastic extrudate into pellets that contain a plurality of the plastic beads,
- cooling the pellets with the cooling liquid until the pellets become solid,
- immersing the solid pellets in a dissolving liquid that dissolves the plastic extrudate at the surface of the solid pellets, and
- agitating the pellets in the dissolving liquid for dissolving the exposed surfaces of the pellets and for exposing the reflective beads at the surfaces of the pellets.
6 more elements
A process of making reflective pellets for reflective marking of highways, comprising:
- forming a mixture of molten thermoplastic and reflective beads,
- progressively moving the mixture through a die to form an extrudate,
- dividing the plastic extrudate into lengths to form the plastic extrudate into pellets each of which contain a plurality of the plastic beads,
- cooling the pellets until the pellets become solid, and
- removing the thermoplastic at the surface of the pellets to expose the reflective beads at the surface of the pellets.
2 more elements
A process of forming a highway marking comprising:
- applying a base line of molten thermoplastic pavement marking to a highway surface,
- before the molten base line cures, partially embedding pellets at intervals into the molten base line, with the pellets including reflective beads exposed at the surface of the pellets, and
- anchoring the pellets in the molten base line by joining the molten thermoplastic of the base line with the pellets and curing the base line.
Pellets for reflective marking of highways, said pellets each comprising:
- a body formed of an extruded thermoplastic,
- reflective beads distributed within said solid body with some of the reflective beads being surface beads exposed at the surface of the solid body and other reflective beads being internal beads positioned internally of the solid body,
- such that as the surface of the solid body wears away some of the surface beads exposed at the surface of the solid body are lost and some of the internal beads become exposed at the surface of the solid body.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.