DESIGN : New Plastic Might Frustrate Taggers
A plastic building block of the future won a Culver City engineering company a $14,250 grant from the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County--and it could be the answer to quieter, graffiti-free freeways, the developer says.
RWK Development will use the funds to do additional testing on Quilite, a polycarbonate plastic that is lightweight, durable and absorbs noise. Although the material is already used--some banks, for example, use thick sheets of polycarbonate plastic for bulletproof shields--RWK’s design is thinner, company President Rod Kotter said.
The company’s plan is to form Quilite into blocks, stack the blocks in steel frames and erect sound walls beside freeways. The translucent blocks cost about $15 a square foot, Kotter said.
When sprayed with a chemical, the blocks would be graffiti-resistant, Kotter said. Paint could be washed off with hot water.
The walls would be prefabricated and installed in 8-by-12-foot sections--a far quicker job than having workers construct sound barriers one concrete block at a time. “They could build 240 feet in one eight-hour shift, using three men,” Kotter said.
Rocks flung against panes of Quilite would not break it. Although most plastics melt at 180 degrees Fahrenheit, Kotter said, Quilite begins to melt at 300 degrees.
“This material is durable--it doesn’t deteriorate in sunlight, it doesn’t get soft in high temperatures and it doesn’t get brittle in the cold,” he said.
Freeway walls are only one of the plans RWK has for its polycarbonate product. The material is also suitable for skylights, the walls of buildings and curved windows.
The grant from the Economic Development Corp. must be matched by the company. Kotter said he has spent $125,000 in the past five years developing the product.
Before Kotter can use Quilite on California freeways, he needs approval from the California Department of Transportation. Caltrans has spent about $325 million building about 350 miles of sound walls on the state’s 15,000 miles of freeways.