FLEXIBLE PVC BOLLARD IS UP TO 90%CHEAPER THAN A METAL ONE

DESCRIPTION OF CASE STUDY:

The purpose of this case study: to demonstrate that a flexible PVC bollard does protect your workers from injuries and doors from damages as a metal one, and does it in a more EFFICIENT way. It generates a higher return and cuts dramatically maintenance costs by protecting the floor from damages.

We are introducing in the industrial protection market a FLEXIBLE PVC BOLLARD.

Its core material is PVC: when hit by a forklift, it bends, it absorbs the impact and neutralizes the hit that it receives.

WHY USE A PVC BOLLARD?

Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) Bollard is ideal to protect access to gates or doors from forklifts heavy traffic or simply to mark restricted areas for pedestrians.

WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF PVC BOLLARD?

1. Flexible
2. Durable
3. Compact
4. Recyclable
5. High impact absorption
6. Available in different sizes by request.

HOW WORKS PVC BOLLARD?

When a forklift hits a PVC protection, the protection accomplishes 4 tasks:

1. By bending up to a few inches/cm, it absorbs the hit;
2. It protects, what’s behind it;
3. It goes back to the original position, ready to absorb another impact;
4. By absorbing the impact, it doesn’t transmit the force of the impact to the floor. Therefore, it does not break the concrete or epoxy floor.

HOW MUCH CAN YOU SAVE SWITCHING TO FLEXIBLE PVC BOLLARD?

Now let’s focus on calculating the real cost of both solutions over a 10-year life-span. We will start by assuming that a PVC bollard costs 400 US dollars while a steel one costs 100 US dollars. Let’s also assume that a bollard will be hit at least 10 times per year and that a major impact will occur every year.

When a major impact occurs, the steel bollard after a powerful hit gets uprooted from the floor: as the steel is not flexible, it cannot dissipate the energy by bending, and therefore it transfers all the energy of the impact to the floor and breaks it (Picture 1).

Therefore, when a steel industrial protection is broken, bent and taken off the floor, it does not work anymore. Consequently, the company bears the cost of new industrial protection, as well as the cost of the floor repair.

If we assume that repairing of a 20x20cm floor can cost up to 300 US dollars we come to the conclusion that a steel bollard can cost up to 4000 dollars over 10 years, becoming 10 times more expensive than a PVC Bollard with low maintenance cost (the amount of the floor repair increases if the floor is covered with epoxy).

and real crash tests of PVC Industrial Protection in the video below: