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50 SEPTEMBER 2015 COATINGSPROMAG.COM PHOTOS COURTESY DESCO FLOORS BY JACK INNIS, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Casino Gambles Big on New Flooring System ndiana Grand Racing & Casino was about to gamble big! Te problem started when faint cracks began appear- ing on its 10-year-old, 23,000-square-foot (2,136.8 m²) concrete casino foor. With more than 2,200 slot machines raking in the dough, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the stakes couldn't get much higher. At first, maintenance super visors at the Shelby ville, Ind. facility merely kept an eye on the spider web cracks, hoping they wouldn't breach the acr ylic cementitious coating system that covered the f loor. But like w itnessing a train wreck in slow motion, super visors watched in horror as the network of cracks grew beneath their feet. Soon, cracks once barely visible through the coating system arose through the acr ylic and w idened. Previously hidden expansion joints became exposed. T he problem rapidly grew beyond aesthet- ics; something needed to be done before the cracks became potential tripping hazards! With so much at stake, super visors needed to take fast action, so they reached out to Fortville, Ind.-based Desco Floors. T he first order of business was to figure out what had changed underneath the previously stable casino f loor. Under the direction of president and chief problem solver Lee Reasor, the Desco crew bored more than 20 core samples. T he results were inconclusive! " We drilled to find out what we were dealing w ith, what material was dow n there, how thick it was, what condition it was in, and what the problem was," said Reasor. " Was the cementitious material disbonded from the concrete? Was it breaking dow n? " C a ref u l a n a lysis of t he 2-i nc h (5.1 c m) core sa mples r u led out ad hesion problems a nd m ater i a l brea kdow n, but it fa i led to pi npoi nt t he t rouble. T heor ies abou nded FLOOR EPOXY CONCRETE