Talaea El Gaish Settling Tank Waterproofing
Settling tanks at Talaea El Gaish Club were lined with hot-spray polyurea in 2020.
01 · Project overview
What is this project?
Talaea El Gaish is one of Cairo’s old sporting clubs, with grounds that drink a lot of treated water. Settling tanks are where that water slows down so the solids can drop. The concrete is wet for the life of the tank.
In 2020 those tanks were lined with pure polyurea. Screed Contracting carried the application. A basin like this is not a roof you patch from above next season. The lining sits under water.
| Place | Talaea El Gaish Club |
|---|---|
| Year | 2020 |
| Scope | Settling tanks |
| System | Hot-spray pure polyurea |
| Applicator | Screed Contracting |
02 · The challenge
What did this structure ask of the membrane?
Settling tanks stay full, and the water is not always kind to concrete. Corners and pipe entries take the stress. A jointed lining will open, and the leak goes into the ground under a club that is in daily use.
03 · The solution
Which Krypton system was trusted here?
A hot-spray pure polyurea turns the box into one film: floor, walls and entries together. Polyurea Rayston gels in seconds and builds about 1.5 to 2 mm in a normal pass, enough to bridge the hairline cracks a wet basin grows.
04 · Application
How is this system built?
Concrete is prepared before any resin goes down. Polyurea Rayston, Krypton’s hot-spray pure polyurea, wants a support that is flat, compact and cohesive. Pull-off strength should be at least 1.4 N/mm2. Cracks are cut out and filled first. High-pressure sand or abrasion opens the pores, and the dust is vacuumed off. Moisture in the concrete must sit under 4 percent. Concrete temperature belongs between 10 and 40 degrees C, and the air should be under 85 percent relative humidity. If damp is suspected behind the slab, two coats of epoxy primer go on, the second one blinded with quartz sand. Metal is cleaned and primed with a polyurethane primer. That bond is what stops a blister when the structure heats up.
A tank pushes water against its own concrete for years. A pinhole at a corner or around a pipe becomes a leak you only find after the finishes are on. The lining has to be continuous, and it has to be finished fast enough that the cell can be closed in one visit.
Spraying is hot and fast. Both components are brought to about 25 to 30 degrees C before they are loaded. In the machine they run hotter: about 65 degrees C on the resin, 75 degrees C on the isocyanate, and 65 degrees C in the hose. Pressure at the gun is at least 140 bar. The usual build is 1.5 to 2.0 kg/m2, which leaves a film about 1.5 to 2 mm thick. Gel time is about 4 seconds at 25 degrees C. The surface is tack-free in a matter of seconds, not hours. Hardness climbs from roughly 28 Shore A at five minutes to about 88 Shore A after four days. One pass should make the thickness. Where a corner needs a second pass, it should follow within about two hours.
Speed is the practical gift on a crowded site. Upstands, outlets and internal corners can be closed before the next trade arrives. The film itself is elastic. Typical elongation is 324 percent and tensile strength is 16.2 MPa, with tear strength around 69 N/mm. It bridges cracks instead of snapping when concrete moves.
Inside a tank the film is there to live under water, not to be looked at. Water uptake is very low, about 0.002 kg/m2 per square-root hour. Chemical testing puts it in class II against 25 percent salt and class III against hydrogen sulphide and 10 percent sulphuric acid. Drinking-water migration tests and a WRAS material approval are on the same datasheet, which is the right background when a tank feeds people or a process. Sunlight is not the duty inside a closed cell. The product carries CE marking to EN 1504-2 and European Technical Assessment 16/0148. Those figures describe the product, not a test carried out in this tank.
Polyurea Rayston technical data sheet
After the spray, the tank is a box you are about to close. Pipe entries have to be sprayed into the same film, not sleeved with a mastic joint. Walls need the same thickness as the floor, because water does not prefer the easy face. Light contact is a matter of hours. Filling waits until hardness has climbed, which for this polyurea is days, not weeks. A buried or covered lining does not need a colour coat. It needs the details finished before the valves open.
05 · Results
What does a job like this ask us to stand behind?
The tanks have one standard to meet. Hold the water, with no joint left to open under a club that cannot spare the basin.
06 · Products
Which products carry this duty?
Polyurea Rayston
Hot-spray pure polyurea. Typical build 1.5 to 2 mm. Elongation 324 percent. Root resistance tested to CEN/TS 14416.
07 · FAQ
Frequently asked questions
How fast does the polyurea set?
Polyurea Rayston gels in about 4 seconds at 25 degrees C and is tack-free in seconds. Full hardness still takes days.
Will it bridge a crack?
Typical elongation is 324 percent and tensile strength is 16.2 MPa. The film is meant to stretch with the concrete, or with a metal panel, instead of tearing at the movement.
Can the lining hold water people use?
Migration testing and a WRAS material approval are on the Polyurea Rayston datasheet. Pipe entries still have to be sprayed into the same film.
Does sunlight damage it?
Colour can shift because the resin is aromatic. Strength stays. An aliphatic topcoat is added where the film remains in the sun.
What moisture can the concrete have?
Support moisture should be under 4 percent, with concrete between 10 and 40 degrees C. Wetter concrete gets an epoxy primer blinded with quartz.