Polyurethane (PU) Tactile Strips – Coloured Directional Indicators

Overview

Guiding paths in schools, hospitals and offices are often long, run through carpeted or vinyl-floored corridors, and must be visible to partially sighted users as well as detectable by cane. Polyurethane tactile strips answer all three needs: they are low cost per metre, they fix to almost any floor with stems or 3M tape, and their solid colour gives strong luminance contrast without inserts or coatings.

MetalX moulds the strips in Mumbai from the same polyurethane elastomer as our PU tactile studs and PU tactile tiles, so a whole building can be equipped in matching colour. The bar profile is identical to our stainless steel strip (280 × 35 × 4.5 mm), which allows PU strips indoors to connect seamlessly to metal strips at the entrance.

Advantages of PU strips

• Cost: the lowest material and installation cost of any directional indicator we make.
• Contrast: six body colours; yellow and terracotta are the most common on grey floors.
• Comfort: quiet under a cane and slightly resilient underfoot.
• Weight: a carton of 100 strips weighs a few kilograms, keeping export freight low.
• Repair: a damaged bar can be cut out and replaced in minutes.

Limitations

PU is not recommended for open exterior pavements with heavy vehicle over-run, or where a metallic architectural finish is specified. In those cases choose stainless steel or aluminium tactile strips.

Why a school or hospital chooses PU strips

A guiding path in a teaching hospital can run several hundred metres from the entrance through outpatients to the lifts and wards. Along that route the floor changes from stone at the entrance to vitrified tile in the corridors and vinyl in the wards. PU strips handle all of it: stems into stone, 3M tape onto tile and vinyl, one profile and one colour throughout. They are quiet under a cane, which matters on a ward at night, and if a bed or trolley damages a bar it is cut out and replaced in a minute.

Choosing the colour

Keep to one colour for the whole path and use the same colour for the warning studs at its end, so the system reads as one.

Stem or self-adhesive

Stem-fixed strips have three moulded pegs that go into Ø8 mm holes with a drop of adhesive; use them on stone, concrete and any floor that is hosed. Self-adhesive strips carry factory-applied 3M tape and are pressed onto clean tile, vinyl or resin; use them in occupied buildings. Both are moulded from the same compound.

How many strips do you need?

Four bars across a 300 mm path at 75 mm centres gives about 13.3 bars per metre. A 250 m hospital route needs roughly 3,350 bars plus a warning square of studs at every turn and destination. A carton of 100 PU bars weighs only a few kilograms, so even a large route ships by courier.

What affects the price

1. Fixing: stem is the base; 3M tape adds a little per bar.
2. Length: 280 mm is standard; other lengths are made to order.
3. Colour: the six standard colours are one price; custom colours carry a batch minimum.
4. Quantity and destination: volume pricing from a few hundred metres.

PU strips are the lowest-cost directional indicator we manufacture per metre of installed path.

Mistakes we see with PU strips

• Bars laid across the route. Bars run parallel to the direction of travel.
• Path with no warning squares. Every turn, junction and destination ends in a stud field.
• Adhesive bars on freshly polished floors. Strip polish and wipe with isopropyl alcohol first.
• Different colours for studs and strips. Match them.
• Using PU on open exterior paving. Change to stainless steel at the door.

Typical specification clause

“Tactile directional strips: UV-stabilised polyurethane elastomer, through-body colour [yellow], 280 × 35 × 4.5 mm with linear pattern top, three moulded stems set in adhesive [or factory-applied 3M self-adhesive backing], laid parallel to the direction of travel at 75 mm centres, four bars per 300 mm path, terminating in matching PU warning stud fields at all changes of direction and destinations. Manufacturer: MetalX Engineering Inc., Mumbai, or approved equal.”

Where they are in service

Hospital and university corridors across India, government offices and courts, residential clubhouses, and covered walkways in townships and IT campuses.