Method of manufacturing composite wood flooring

A process of manufacturing a composite wood board for use with a plurality of such composite wood boards in a floor system of a vehicular trailer or container, wherein each composite board comprises a unitary wood member with an exposed wood top surface and a bottom surface substantially bonded to a continuous planar layer of fiber reinforced polymer rendering the bottom surface substantially non-exposed, the process comprising the steps of:

• providing the wood member as a side-to-side or edge bonded plurality of wood segments in an approximately planar arrangement with a substantial majority of the wood segments having shaped coupling portions at ends thereof, which ends are engaged to form several randomly placed end joints in the wood member;
• machining the bonded wood segments to produce a planar wood member with two opposing machined major surfaces and first and second side surfaces, said wood member having a length, width, thickness and longitudinal and transverse axes;
• providing a planar layer of fiber reinforced polymer having two major surfaces and a length, width, thickness and longitudinal and lateral axes, said planar layer of fiber reinforced polymer comprising a thermosetting or a thermoplastic polymer and reinforcing fibers, with at least about 70% of the fibers of said fiber reinforced polymer extending in a direction substantially parallel to the longitudinal axis of the planar layer of fiber reinforced polymer;
• altering at least one major surface of the planar layer of fiber reinforced polymer to form an altered major surface by sanding or abrasion to provide a uniform thickness and clean bonding surface to the planar layer of fiber reinforced polymer;
• substantially aligning the longitudinal axis of the planar layer of fiber reinforced polymer with the longitudinal axis of the wood member and substantially continuously coating one or both of the machined major surface of the wood member and the altered major surface of the planar layer of fiber reinforced polymer with a reactive hotmelt adhesive, followed by joining of the planar layer of fiber reinforced polymer to the wood member and pressing of the joined surfaces together, causing substantially no squeeze-out of the adhesive through the end joints of the wood segments and causing substantially no heat related distortion of the wood member;
• and
• curing the adhesive under ambient conditions to bond the planar layer of fiber reinforced polymer to the wood member to produce a composite wood board;
• whereby said planar layer of the fiber reinforced polymer bonded to the bottom surface of the wood member of the composite board resists pop-out of the wood segments at the coupling portions at the ends of the wood segments and improves one or more of the flexural modulus, strength and load carrying capacity of the composite wood board.