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TURFGRASS. INNOVATIVO EL MUNDO
TURFGRASS ALLOWS LOGOS TO BE SHOWN ON ITS GRASS
>PLASTICS/ The Alicante-based company has adapted its carpet machines to make patterns in artificial grass, and now it can display advertising and images linked to teams like Atlético de Madrid.
The advertisements that make the football world go round have found a new site: artificial grass. Until now, the methods used have been plastic or woollen sheets or paint on natural grass.
With the Turfgrass system, designed by the Doménech Hermanos company, a logo, crest or any other image can be created, just like the pattern in a carpet. Advantages include the fact that colours stay bright for up to eight years, enduring the elements. That is why Atlético de Madrid already has one at its Vicente Calderón stadium, and Barcelona is considering the same for the Camp Nou.
An early success for a product that is only just beginning to be promoted, and which was launched after a 14-month process of adapting the machinery used for making hotel carpets.
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ATLÉTICO DE MADRID DISPLAYS ITS CREST ON THE GRASS WOVEN BY TURFGRASS
The Muro de Alcoy company Doménech Hermanos has transformed a carpet weaving machine into one that weaves grass, allowing a pattern to be created even on large surfaces. By Miquel Hernandis.
Advertising is everywhere. Everywhere? Well, there was still one surface to be conquered: the grass. Grounded in the district’s long experience in fabrics and plastics, Doménech Hermanos has created its Tufting fabric for its Turfgrass brand. They were inspired by the need to “place advertising in sporting facilities that would resist outdoor weather conditions and show the brands that wish to advertise.” With this invention, they are able to create expanses of grass in a single piece, with no breaks, and which show designs without painting or printing.
Is this an advertisers’ dream? Yes, “and a politician’s dream too,” explains Llanos Doménech, the communication manager at the Muro de Alcoy company. Examples of both cases are in place at Atlético de Madrid and the utility company Canal de Isabel II.
The Madrid club uses this system for its sponsor’s advertising at the Vicente Calderón Stadium. The sports newspaper Marca displays its 18- by 4-metre logo in this way. This artificial grass carpet took “about four or five hours” to weave.
Thanks to this technique, the woollen mats used by Real Madrid, and the paint used by Barça -a club that is now looking into the grass system- can be avoided, maintaining the practical artificial surface. The system has the advantage that the colour will “last more than eight years despite exposure to the elements.” Another use is flooring for children’s playparks, such as the one in Heligoland in Germany, where the design includes, among other things, giant ludo boards.
The company that looks after the water supply in Madrid Region, Canal de Isabel II, is the latest to take advantage of this system and is preparing a 45-metre-long design.
To reach the stage of being able to start production, the company spent fourteen months adapting the machines used for weaving hotel carpets, another of its specialities. “There was nobody making carpets without cuts, so we transformed the machines we had,” says Doménech. “At the beginning it was very slow; it was difficult to adjust the machine because of the thickness of the yarns needed for grass, and the type of twist required,” he recalls. That is why many tests had to be made until the right measurements were achieved to speed up the system. “Now, one of the most demanding jobs is placing the cones and needles, but once that is done, the process goes quickly.” The yarns used have the same material as the ones used for artificial grass: polyethylene. “It is more elastic and does not break easily.” The difference is in the structure of the yarn: its weight, thickness, number of threads, filament cross-section and twist, which are determined by the type of machinery and the visual effect desired.
As is the case with a knitting machine, the cones or reels must be placed on the creel of the Tufting Colortec machine. The yarns that make up the grass are drawn individually through a series of tubes to each one of the thousand different needles, which are located along the four-metre width of the loom. Each needle is programmed using a computer-assisted design system, the same software that lays out the pattern of a hotel carpet, and each one moves independently allowing the grass to be made according to the design. The machine allows the use of up to six colours of yarn in a single piece.
During the process, the machine is fed from a base of the same width, which acts as a support. After this stage comes the finishing process. To join the yarn to the primary fabric, a foaming machine deposits a thin layer of polyurethane on the back. Then, to dry the surface, it passes through a warming oven. After this, small holes are made in the backing to allow drainage once installed. Now it is reading for packing and shipping.
MORE DISCOVERIES
Through its work on plastic surfaces, Doménech has also developed a new product that consists of the manufacture of a polyurethane elastic base. The aim is to use it to replace the conglomerate mats that are currently used in children’s playparks and in some sports. Compared with the 4 centimetres of material needed at present to stop injuries in the case of falls, 12 millimetres of the new material would be enough, and furthermore it can be manufactured in continuous lengths.
