Porviva made their name primarily with its anti-slip solutions. The mission has always been to make water parks less slippery and thus safer. The latest innovation from porviva ensures the opposite, of all things. It is used on water slides and makes them significantly more slippery!
The coating has already proven its effectiveness in a large-scale field test. In a large-scale test in WildWadi, Dubai, the company carried out measurements on the Master Blaster. Various lifeguards were used as test samples, and their weights were recorded beforehand. In the first step, the sensors installed in the Master Blaster were used to measure the speed of the sliders, the water flow of the attraction and the energy required by the pumps. The coating was then applied to the slide and the test was repeated the next day with the same group of people. The result: the surface of the slide was significantly more slippery. The water pressure of the pumps, which is necessary to transport the people over the upward passage, was reduced in the course of this. Accordingly, energy consumption during the operation was reduced.
The practical test thus clearly proved a relevant contribution to making water parks more energy-efficient and thus more environmentally friendly.
Long-term tests of the coating revealed another significant advantage. Not only was the effect of making the slide surface smoother proven over a longer period of time, but a positive effect was also observed for problems known to water parks, such as fading color of slides and need for maintenance. In a test piece of a slide in Legoland Dubai as well as on the Master Blaster in Wild Wadi, it was shown that slides treated with the coating even out significantly slower. The coating thus also contributes to resilience against strong sunlight as well as chemicals in the water such as chlorine and lime.
Also for slides without upward passages, but where the energy saving is not in the foreground, an application with the coating of porviva is advantageous. The maintenance and care of the slides is thus significantly simplified, and existing installations can also be operated for longer.
In particular, the simplification is evident when waxing the slides. Long-term tests have shown that waxing is no longer necessary once the slide has been treated with the coating. Thus, porviva’s solution revolutionizes a maintenance standard process that has existed for decades. Until now, waxing was a necessary treatment that was rarely or insufficiently performed by some parks, contrary to manufacturers’ recommendations and warranty conditions. Thus, porviva’s coating helps especially those attractions for which proper maintenance was a major obstacle or too high a cost factor in daily operation.
Slides with uphill passages in particular are becoming increasingly popular. Yet these popular attractions are among the biggest energy consumers in park operations. Solutions on how to make these slides more environmentally friendly, i.e. “greener”, are more important than ever in times of energy saving!
A lot has happened in the quality of slide manufacturing in recent years, and innovations in slide construction have been numerous. But hardly anything has changed in daily operation and maintenance. In the course of (economically) sustainable operation, it is important to ensure long operating times for built installations and at the same time to keep the maintenance effort as low as possible. Personnel for cleaning or waxing of slides is scarce and expensive, furthermore the acceptance of closed slides by the visitors is low.
The solution of porviva enables energy savings and simplification of maintenance and thus has the potential to positively influence the operation of water parks in the long term!