WO2005035361A1

WO2005035361A1 - Covering basis around lights and signs at airport

Info

Publication number: WO2005035361A1
Application number: PCT/CA2004/000787
Authority: WO
Inventors: Jean PRÉVOST; Joe Dobson
Original assignee: Fieldturf Inc; Fieldturf IP Inc
Current assignee: Fieldturf Inc; Fieldturf IP Inc
Priority date: 2003-10-10
Filing date: 2004-05-27
Publication date: 2005-04-21
Anticipated expiration: 2006-04-10
Also published as: AU2004279482A1; CA2542157A1; BRPI0415329A

Abstract

An artificial grass section (24) placed around the light or sign standards (10, 12) along a runway in a manner that will prevent the mowers from being so close to the light and sign standards (10, 12). By placing these artificial grass sections (24) around the bases (12), it will eliminate all handwork and wiper sniper operations that are now done on a regular basis while at the same time reducing the risk that loose particles, like stones, be projected onto the runway.

Description

COVERING BASIS AROUND LIGHTS AND SIGNS AT AIRPORT

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention The present invention relates to synthetic grass turf to be installed around light bases and sign bases at an airport to prevent the mowers from breaking the lights by being too close and to prevent FOD (Foreign Object Damage) to be created by the rotational movement of the mowing decks around the light fixtures and around the bases.

Description of the Prior Art Historically airports have to mow their grass on a regular basis. The area around the lights needs to be mowed at a certain level in order to maintain visibility of the lights at all times. The same applies to other signs that have a rectangular base. When the people mowing these areas are doing their work, they always try to minimize the amount of handwork that will be done; therefore they try to mow the grass close to the fixtures. This often results in FOD being projected onto the runways because of the proximity of the lights to the runways. As these mowers drive along they have to do a circular pattern in order to mow completely around the light standards. As they turn around the mower decks can possibly tilt and hit stones that may be projected onto the runway. The number of times that this can occur next to both sides of the runway is significant and can easily create a hazard for the airplanes. Many of these operations have to be done at night since the requirements for being able to work in the daytime on mowing the grass at an airport are very strict. Therefore, most of this work is done at night and the FOD cannot necessarily be observed at that particular time. Once the mowing has been completed for the evening, the morning crew has to inspect the runway for FOD. This is a mandatory in order to maintain the safety levels for aircrafts at all airports. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is therefore an aim of the present invention to reduce the risk of foreign object damage at airports. It is also an aim of the present invention to facilitate the maintenance of an airfield. In accordance with a general aspect of the present invention, the above objects can be achieved by having an artificial grass section placed around the light or sign standards and their respective bases in a mariner that will prevent the mowers from requiring to be so close to the light and sign standards. By placing these artificial grass sections around the bases, it will eliminate all handwork and edging operations that are now done on a regular basis. In accordance with a general aspect of the present invention, there is provided an airport light and sign base surrounding arrangement comprising a section of artificial grass placed in a soil cavity defined around a base of an airport light or sign holding structure, and a seal between said section of artificial grass and the base to prevent grass from growing between the artificial grass and the base. The mowing decks will simply be able to stay within a selective amount of feet or meters from the light or sign standards, thereby eliminating damage to the standards and eliminating the handwork. By eliminating this it also means that there can be less circular movement of the mower decks around the light or sign standards should the artificial grass be designed in a way that would minimize this movement. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Having thus generally described the nature of the invention, reference will now be made to the accompanying drawings, showing by way of illustration a preferred embodiment thereof, and in which: Fig. 1 is a perspective view of a typical airport light post arrangement with the sod around the base of the light post removed to define a soil base cavity for receiving a section of artificial grass in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention; Fig. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the airport light post arrangement of Fig. 1 showing an artificial grass edge anchor installed about the base of the light post in the soil base cavity; Fig. 3 is a top plan view of the airport light post arrangement illustrating the outline of the soil base cavity defined around the base of the light post; Fig. 4 is a cross-sectional view of the light post arrangement with a section of artificial grass installed in the soil base cavity; Fig. 5 is perspective view showing the artificial grass section surrounding the base of the airport light post arrangement; and Fig. 6 is a top plan view of the artificial grass section surrounding the airport light post. DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Figs. 1 to 3 illustrate a typical airport light post 10 extending vertically upwardly from a cylindrical concrete base 12 located on a side of an airstrip, such as a runway or a taxiway. According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the sod (the surface soil with natural grass growing on it) around the light base 12 should be removed in order to form a soil base cavity 14 in which the artificial grass will be deposited, as will be seen hereinafter with reference to Figs. 4 to 6. The sod can be removed by means of a sod cutter blade in a manner that would not create FOD. The sod cutter blade could cut a very clean cut around the designed perimeter of the grass in order to simply create the cavity necessary to embed the artificial grass into the ground flush with the surrounding natural grass 16 for. the mowers to travel right on the artificial grass without causing damage. According to the illustrated example, the cavity 14 is provided in the form of a 4'x4' cavity. However, it is understood that the cavity 14 could be of various sizes and shapes. The design of the cavity could be such that it could maximize having the mowers drive in a straight direction as apposed to requiring the mowers to encircle the bases 12 of the light post 10, thereby creating multidirectional projection of the potential FOD. By having the cavities and thus the artificial grass sections made in a longer pattern, more parallel to the runway, the mowing can be done parallel to the runway and have the stones, if any, projected more toward the inside of the area between the runways or taxiways as apposed to all directions as the mower decks circle the bases to be mowed around. Once the sod about the light base 12 has been removed, an edge anchor 18 is installed about the base 12 for providing a point of attachment for the artificial grass. As shown in Figs. 1 to 3, the edge anchor 18 can be provided in the form of a flexible L-shaped member installed in the cavity 14 around the base 12 so as to embrace the outline thereof. The edge anchor 18 has a vertical portion 20 from the lower edge of which projects a horizontal lip 22 to which the inner edge of the artificial grass can be glued or otherwise secured. The vertical portion 20 can be adhered to the side of the concrete base 12 by means of an adhesive, it can be ramset or even screwed into the concrete base 12. The L-shaped anchoring member 18 is preferably provided in the form of a recycled plastic angle iron or an extruded rubberized material with a peel and stick fabric on the back for allowing the same to be quickly adhered to the base 12 in order to create a seal. It is important to provide a seal at the interface between the edge anchor 18 and the base 12 to prevent grass from growing between the artificial grass and the light standard. If grass should grow between the artificial grass and the base 12, it would still require handwork and wiper sniping. This would negate one of the benefits of the present invention. The edge anchor 18 could alternatively take the form of a 2"x4" or larger section of wood or recycled plastic nailer board fastened to the ground around the base 12 by means of rebars or the like. Should this method be used, a sealer would have to be placed between the nailer board and the concrete base 12 in order to prevent growth from coming up between the artificial grass and the base 12. For installation around square or rectangular bases, adhering the entire nailer board to the side of the base is also possible but is more costly and labor intensive. Once the edge anchor 18 has been properly secured in position around the base 12, a section of artificial grass 24 is laid down in the cavityl4, as shown in Figs. 4 to 6. There are many means by which to be cost effective when installing such a synthetic grass section. Many of these synthetic grass sections can be made from extra grass from previous similar high pile installations since they are relatively small pieces. However larger sections may be beneficial as described above to maintain a mowing pattern more parallel to the runways. Preassembling and pre-infilling the artificial grass 24 can also be done and stacked in order for the jobsite work time to be minimized which is always essential around the runway. Since most of these installations will have to be done at night in order to keep the runways open, the faster the installation the better and the lower the labor cost the better. Infilling a small section of artificial grass as described above is problematic for small areas and cannot be done effectively in such an environment since the means of brushing and/or raking would be mostly by hand for small sections and the necessity of bringing the infill material onto the airport property causes additional problems since it is easy to spill sand and/or small rock infill on such an environment thereby requiring more clean up. It is also extremely difficult to contain the sand or small rock only in the artificial grass and not having it spill onto the grass, whereby the mower deck would again project this infill onto the runway. Therefore, the system is better designed by having the specific diameter of any round light base be known and creating the grass sections to perfectly fit these areas by having them precut and pre-infϊlled. This means that using a forklift, precut and pre-infilled sections 24 can simply be deposited over the light standard in place where the perimeter ring (the anchor 18) has been pre-installed about the concrete base 12. Since any work of this type needs to be covered and completed prior to the runway being reopened, it means it is ideal to cut open base areas and know that the base can be covered and secured fully in appropriate amount of time to be effective and to completely eliminate a potential FOD issue. As shown in Fig. 4, a sealer 26 is provided on the horizontal lip 22 of the edge anchor 18 underneath the artificial grass 24. The sealer 26 is preferably bonded to the lip 22 and the artificial grass 24 in order to sealingly attach the artificial grass 24 to the edge anchor 18. The outer edge 28 of the artificial grass 24 could be anchored to the ground by burying the grass 24 into the soil and backfilling it. However, this method would require extreme care in order to not create FOD at this area in order to prevent the next mower deck from flicking stones onto the runway. Another method of anchoring the grass 24 securely into the ground would be to have a sod cutter blade with a protruding horizontal blade from 2" to 4" or longer in length that would slice the outer edge of the existing sod, if it is in good enough shape to be effective. By slicing the sod we can raise it and bury a portion of the outer edge 28 of the synthetic grass 24 under the sod and just redeposit the sod on top of the artificial grass 24, as shown in Figs. 4 and 6. Therefore, the surrounding grass 16 will grow into the edge of the artificial grass 24 and therefore bind it to the ground. The artificial grass 24 generally includes a plurality of pile elements 30 resembling blades of grass and extending from a relatively thin and flexible backing mat 32 to a predetermined height thereabove. A non-water retaining ballast material 34 for stabilizing the artificial grass 24 in place is preferably provided on the backing mat 32 and has a thickness less than the predetermined height of the pile elements 30. The ballast material 34 is provided in the form of a relatively thick layer of particulate material dispersed among the pile elements 30 on the backing mat 32. The rows of pile elements 30 can be similar to that described in

Applicant's co-pending Canadian Patent 2,218,314 filed on October 16, 1997, and laid open on September 10, 1998, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. The artificial grass 24 should be a relatively high pile grass in order to have enough ballast inserted into the grass to secure it to the ground. The artificial grass 24 would have to be non permeable in order to prevent weeds from growing through it. A weed banier could also be applied or a liner such as in a landfill could be installed to prevent growth from coming up through the mat 32. Another method of preventing growth through the grass would be to sterilize the soil and to increase the thickness of a solid coating on the artificial grass 24. Natural grass could eventually grow into the artificial grass but this can be treated occasionally with weed killers and/or growth inhibitors. However, using a small rock as the infill (ballast 34), would minimize the amount of growth since it is harder for growth to begin in an environment such as a small rock as opposed to a sand based infill. This is important since clippings of the grass are apt to fall on the artificial grass and air blown seeds can also be projected on these zones thereby promoting growth. Therefore, it is preferable to have a treated infill that would prevent growth over a long period of time and have the possibility of retreating this infill as required over many years. The fibers 34 are preferably made of polyethylene, as it is better than polypropylene for long term UV protection. Finally, the thicker the blade of grass 34, the longer lasting it is. Although the present invention as been described as an airport light base surrounding arrangement, it is understood that the present invention is also applicable to any light fixtures, signs of any shape, and directional panels etc. that also need to have grass trimmed at their bases.

Claims

CLAIMS:

1. An airport light and sign base surrounding arrangement comprising a section of artificial grass placed in a soil cavity defined around a base of an airport light or sign holding structure, and a seal between said section of artificial grass and the base to prevent grass from growing between the artificial grass and the base.

2. An airport light and sign base surrounding arrangement as defined in claim 1, wherein said section of artificial grass has a longitudinal axis, said longitudinal axis being parallel to a runway on a side of which the base is located.

3. An airport light and sign base surrounding arrangement as defined in claim 1, further comprising an edge anchor mounted in said soil cavity around the base for anchoring said artificial grass surface about the base.

4. An airport light and sign base surrounding arrangement as defined in claim 3, wherein said edge anchor includes an L-shaped member having a horizontal lip to which said artificial grass is attached.

5. An airport light and sign base surrounding arrangement as defined in claim 4, wherein said L-shaped member is flexible and has a vertical backing surface adapted to be placed in sealing engagement with the base.

6. An airport light and sign base surrounding arrangement as defined in claim 5, wherein said vertical backing surface has an adhesive.

7. An airport light and sign base surrounding arrangement as defined in claim 4, wherein a sealer is provided between said horizontal lip and an undersurface of said artificial grass.

8. A ground covering arrangement comprising an artificial grass surface defining a central hole adapted to receive a light or sign standard anchored to the ground at one side of an airstrip, the artificial grass section being adapted to surround the light or sign standard to prevent mowers from requiring to be close to the light or sign standard, and an edge anchor for anchoring an inner edge of the artificial grass surface next to the light or sign standard.

9. A ground covering arrangement as defined in claim 8, wherein said surface of artificial grass has a longitudinal axis, said longitudinal axis being parallel to the airstrip on a side of which the base is located.

10. A ground covering arrangement as defined in claim 8, wherein said edge anchor includes an L-shaped member having a horizontal lip to which said artificial grass is attached.

11. A ground covering arrangement as defined in claim 10, wherein said L-shaped member is flexible and has a vertical bacldng surface adapted to be placed in sealing engagement with the base.

12. A ground covering arrangement as defined in claim 11, wherein said vertical backing surface has an adhesive.

13. A ground covering arrangement as defined in claim 11, wherein a sealer is provided between said horizontal lip and an undersurface of said artificial grass.