Schmitz Foam Products has added a rollfoam shock pad to its portfolio. With this addition, the world’s largest shock pad manufacturer aims to become a single-source supplier.
The new addition comes in two-metre-wide rolls to promote easy installation. ProField is now offered in three different thicknesses and two densities. “ProField is suitable for under artificial turf sports pitches and especially football pitches. Because the synthetic turf market for football is now increasingly moving towards synthetic turf pitches with organic infill, we have ensured that ProField is suitable for that type of installation,” explains commercial manager Ron Lokhorst.
The new shock pad should appeal precisely to those installers who prefer polyethylene foam on rolls over panels.
Barely temperature sensitive
According to Lokhorst, ProField is of similar quality to what Schmitz Foam maintains for its ProPlay. ‘The pattern and shape of the expansion slots for this foam have been as carefully considered as we did for our ProPlay panels. Temperature hardly affects ProField at all.” The colour and the fleece finish on both sides also contribute to mitigating a possible impact from temperatures. “Both the colour and the fleece offer better stability and prevent possible ‘creep’ of the shock pad. The colour we give to the material was specially chosen because tests showed that this colour absorbed the least heat.”
Recycled content
Schmitz Foam had a whole new production line installed for the production of ProField. “Whereas the ProPlay panels are made from foam residues from other industries, ProField is a foam we make ourselves,” notes sales manager Marc Ganzeboom. That said, ProField also contains a significant proportion of material that is reused. “Resin waste from even before the foam production is directly fed back into the production process for ProField. As a result, ProField also contains around 30% recycled material.”
The foam for ProField is also made from a cross-linked polyethylene, the same basic raw material used by Schmitz Foam for its ProPlay. “The cutting residues left over when ProField is cut to width and length are used again for the production of ProPlay. And at the end of its technical lifetime, we can take back ProField and use it for the production of new ProPlay shock pads.”
Because European standard EN 15330-4, the standard that specifies the minimum performance and durability requirements for shock pads, stipulates that the lifetime of a shock pad must be at least twice as long as that for the synthetic turf top layer, Schmitz Foam offers at least a 25-year warranty on the lifetime of ProField.