In April 1966, the largest indoor stadium at that time, the Astrodome at Houston, Texas, as usual, quietly waited for the start of the baseball league. But unlike the past, before the start of the game, Chemtrand Company laid the world's first artificial turf - "Astroturf" (Astroturf or Space Grass) in the Ballpark. Since then, the artificial turf has officially entered the world stage, Appearing in people's sight, with the successful use of artificial turf in the Space Dome, artificial turf has become popular in major sports events in North America.
Houston's Space Dome Stadium
However, although some people are very fond of this new venue material, there are still some people who are not interested in it. Baseball star Dick Allen once said publicly, "I don't want to play in places where horses don't even know how to eat. It can be said that the development of artificial grass has never been without controversy. Today, we will delve into the development history of artificial grass and its "past and present lives".
The first stage of artificial grass is represented by the product "Asterol grass". It is mainly made of nylon 6 (polyamide 6, PA6), which is brushed and woven onto the substrate without adding any fillers. Nylon is a material that should be familiar to everyone. At that time, as a new expensive fiber product, its most prominent advantage was that its wear resistance was higher than all other fibers, 10 times higher than cotton flower wear resistance and 20 times higher than wool; When stretched to 3-6%, the elastic recovery rate can reach 100%; It can withstand tens of thousands of twists and turns without breaking. At the same time, in terms of fiber strength, nylon is 1-2 times higher than cotton and 4-5 times higher than wool, with a low coefficient of friction. These are undoubtedly very suitable for the performance of sports lawns. However, the problem arises again. Nylon 6, as an engineering plastic, can replace metal materials such as steel, copper, and iron. Therefore, artificial lawns made of nylon 6 are characterized by hardness, particularly hard, People can easily burn their skin when exercising on this type of "steel wire" turf (we can understand the words of a baseball star here). At the same time, the light resistance of nylon 6 is not very ideal, which to some extent limits its outdoor use. Moreover, without adding any fillers, the elasticity of the entire artificial turf is very poor. In a sense, We cannot call the first stage of artificial turf products "carpet products" too much, and not only that, but the price of artificial turf made of nylon 6 is also high.
With the development of artificial turf, people have found that polypropylene (PP) can be used instead of nylon 6 to produce artificial turf silk, and artificial turf has entered the second stage of development. The mechanical properties of PP material are considered excellent among many polymer materials, with high strength, excellent elasticity, and greatly reduced cost compared to nylon 6. People have also added quartz sand to artificial turf to increase its elasticity. Strictly speaking, this is a transitional period for artificial turf products. Although the second stage of artificial turf is cost-effective, The softness and hardness of grass fibers, as well as the rebound performance of turf, have been improved to a certain extent. However, the defects of hard grass fibers, insufficient elasticity, poor weather resistance, and susceptibility to skin burns are still evident.
In the 1970s, linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) was successfully developed. Compared with low-density polyethylene (LDPE), LLDPE has better impact strength, puncture resistance, tensile strength, and environmental stress cracking resistance, as well as good softness and stretchability. In the third stage of artificial grass fiber made from LLDPE, the softness of grass fiber has made a qualitative leap compared to nylon 6 and PP, Compared to adding an appropriate amount of ultraviolet absorber, color masterbatch, and other materials, the various sports performance can be spun into silk and overlaid onto the bottom and back of the polypropylene fiber reinforcement layer to create a beautiful and beautiful artificial turf. After lawn paving, the filling material is generally divided into two layers. The bottom layer of the filling material is acid washed quartz sand. After acid washing, the sharp corners of the stones are removed and there are no impurities; The upper layer is made of rubber particles. Rubber particles should preferably be produced from native rubber. This way, the paved artificial lawn has a soft texture, good cushioning performance, and less damage to athletes, which is now very close to the performance of natural lawns.
In the fourth stage, artificial grass products have developed towards high standards, high requirements, functionalization, environmental protection, and recyclability, while fully meeting the basic needs of sports venues. At this stage, in addition to single mesh and monofilament products, there have also been products such as straight curve blending, with materials such as PE and PP blending and PE and nylon blending. In these products, laying monofilament grass is the main focus, pursuing excellent sports performance, combined with the use of curled silk, and supplemented with a more ideal appearance, to meet sports needs such as safety and leisure.
Some artificial grass products give up the styrene butadiene latex backing and use polyolefin Hot-melt adhesive products as the backing of artificial grass products. The whole artificial grass products are made of polyolefin series materials, truly reaching 100% recyclability of artificial grass products.
In 2005, FIFA issued certification standards for artificial turf, and in 2015, increased certification requirements and updated certification standards. Among them, stadiums rated as QUALITY PRO by FIFA can host any final stage of FIFA and UEFA's highest level of competition. This has demonstrated that the performance of artificial turf products today is comparable to natural grass.
The 2015 Women's Football World Cup held in Canada was a tournament entirely played on artificial turf, and this even led some players to appeal to the Human Rights Court, believing that FIFA and the Canadian Football Association's decision contained gender discrimination. Although this lawsuit was ultimately dismissed and the entire tournament was considered highly successful, the key to the success of the tournament was mainly attributed to the performance of the players - the artificial turf court was considered unrelated to the word 'success'. Regarding the story of artificial turf, it is believed that controversy will always accompany it, but it is in the midst of this questioning that artificial turf products gradually overcome their original shortcomings and then retain them