Reflective summer cure blanket for concrete

Abstract

An improved flexible lightweight reflective summer cure blanket for curing concrete and like materials in geographic areas that experience significant daylight conditions. During the concrete wet curing process, the blanket acts to facilitate the retention of water uniformly in the curing concrete. The blanket has a moisture-impervious exterior surface layer of a single-ply low density thermoplastic translucent film. Immediately beneath the surface layer is an aluminum colored (or coated) woven polyethylene fabric which is further configured with an opaque lower surface. The metallic surface of this fabric acts to reflect heat radiating from the curing concrete back toward the concrete, while also reflecting sunlight. The blanket also has an exterior batting layer of a porous, resilient, polymeric non-woven fabric with hydrophobic properties and sufficient filament length to promote wicking (or capillary wetting action) properties. The reflective summer cure blanket is flexible and lightweight, can be combined with similar adjacent blankets to cover large areas of curing concrete, maintains uniform wetness against the concrete with good wicking (or capillary wetting action) properties, easily conforms to irregular surfaces, and reflects both sunlight and heat radiating from the curing concrete thereby effectively retarding the evaporation of moisture from the concrete. A related method is also disclosed for retarding moisture evaporation from curing concrete using a curing blanket that has a heat reflective surface.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.