Aerospace Floors & Walls

Aerospace Flooring Questions, Answered

What Hangar, MRO and Aerospace Production Floors Need From an Epoxy System

We manufacture these systems and have put them down in Coast Guard helicopter hangars, corporate jet hangars and aerospace production plants. These are our answers from the floor, not a spec sheet.

What is the best epoxy flooring for aircraft hangars and aerospace facilities?

A multi-layer, 100%-solids epoxy system with a urethane-fortified topcoat — not a single-coat product. The right one depends on the traffic: our two-layer Commercial System for light-to-medium duty hangars and shops, the three-layer Military-Industrial System for medium-to-heavy duty, and the chemically hardened Heavy Tonnage System for the heaviest aircraft and equipment traffic.

What separates them is film thickness and the hardness of the wear layer. The Commercial System cures to roughly 12 mils with an 8 mg abrasion rating; the Military-Industrial System to 25–30 mils at 4 mg; Heavy Tonnage to 30 mils at 3 mg with a Shore D hardness that exceeds a construction hard hat. Retail epoxies rate 25 mg and higher — at that point the floor is no harder than semi-gloss wall paint, which is why they peel under tow tractors within a couple of years. The U.S. Coast Guard selected our Commercial System for its helicopter maintenance hangars after testing alternatives; SL Aerospace's own maintenance staff installed the Military-Industrial System on their production floors.

Will an epoxy floor stand up to jet fuel, hydraulic fluid and aviation solvents?

Yes. All three of our hangar systems are rated for solvents, fuels, oils and acids — Jet-A, avgas, engine oil, de-icing fluid and the solvents used in MRO work wipe off a cured 100%-solids epoxy without etching or staining, which is exactly what bare concrete can't do.

Two cases get a different answer. Floors with constant exposure to strong acids or caustic wash-downs — battery shops, plating and chemical process areas — should use our Chemical & Acid Resistant novolac epoxy, which is formulated for immersion-grade exposure. And phosphate-ester hydraulic fluids such as Skydrol are the harshest thing on any aircraft floor: [CONFIRM — our topcoat's rating against Skydrol/Hyjet, or state that spills should be cleaned promptly and we'll match the topcoat to the fluids on your floor]. Tell us which fluids your facility handles and we'll specify the topcoat before you order rather than after.

Can an epoxy floor take the weight of aircraft landing gear, tow tractors and forklifts?

Yes — our Commercial and Military-Industrial Systems are rated for aircraft up to Gulfstream G650 class, and the Heavy Tonnage Epoxy System is built for the largest commercial & military aircraft traffic loads, point loads of jacks, tugs and forklifts on hard tires. The epoxy bonds into the concrete rather than sitting on it, so there is nothing to delaminate under a concentrated load.

The failure you're guarding against isn't the floor crushing — a properly prepared slab carries the weight — it's the coating shearing off at the tire contact patch when a loaded tug pivots. That is a bond and hardness problem. Our base coats penetrate the slab so deeply that a pull test removes the top layer of concrete before it separates the coating, and the topcoats are hard enough that we've run forklifts over Heavy Tonnage with the blades down and left no mark. Fill control joints only on slabs five years or older; on newer slabs we leave them open so slab movement never shows in the floor.

Does a high-gloss epoxy floor improve hangar lighting and FOD visibility?

Noticeably. A light gray or white high-gloss epoxy floor reflects overhead and under-wing light back up instead of absorbing it into dull gray concrete, so technicians see dropped hardware, safety wire and debris they would walk past on a bare slab.

That's why Light Gray and Medium Gray are the standard colors in nearly every hangar we coat — bright enough to show foreign object debris, dark enough to hide tire marks between cleanings. The seamless surface helps too: there are no joints or pores for small parts and grit to lodge in, so a FOD walk is a visual sweep rather than a search, and spills blow or wipe off instead of soaking in. Our topcoats hold that gloss for years because the urethane-fortified wear layer doesn't dull or chalk the way solids-only epoxy does under UV and traffic.

Do you offer ESD or conductive epoxy flooring for avionics labs?

[CONFIRM — if no: ] Not as a stock system. Our aerospace floors are built for hangars, MRO shops and production bays; a static-dissipative avionics lab needs a dedicated conductive system with grounding straps and a resistance spec, and we'd rather tell you that than sell you the wrong floor. Talk to us about the lab and we'll either quote a conductive formulation on a project basis or point you to the right product.

For the rest of the facility — the hangar floor outside the lab, the shop, corridors and wash bays — the standard systems on this page are the right call, and keeping the ESD zone to the rooms that actually need it saves a great deal of money per square foot.

Can safety striping, walkways and bay borders be built into the floor?

Yes. We supply safety line striping kits in yellow, red, blue and black — 600 lineal feet at 4" wide per kit — that are made from proprietary factory ground pigments rather than traditional liquid tints provide thicker coverage and much longer durability.

Ued for: Bay borders, tow paths, pedestrian walkways, hazard zones around fuel, chemical and oxygen stations and company logos. For large facilities we also stock Traffic Yellow and Safety Yellow as full floor colors, and custom colors are available on orders of 6,000 square feet or more.

What layers make up an aerospace epoxy floor system?

A penetrating primer that locks into the prepared concrete, a 100%-solids epoxy build coat that carries the thickness and the color, and a urethane-fortified topcoat with a non-slip additive that takes the wear, the chemicals and the UV. Our two-layer systems combine the primer and build coat; the three-layer Military-Industrial System separates them with a high build 100% solids epoxy for a thicker, harder floor.

Every ArmorGarage system ships complete: floor prep solution and neutralizer, each coating in the quantity your square footage needs, 18" rollers and frames, mixers, spiked soles, calibrated squeegees and the micro-tubular aluminum non-slip additive that acts like rebar inside the topcoat. The non-slip is what makes the gloss floor safe under a coolant or fuel spill. Easy to ordr - You enter your square footage, we calculate the amount of liquids and application tools needed, pack it onto pallets and ship it to your facility.

Can our own maintenance crew install it, and how long is the hangar out of service?

Yes — these are turnkey systems designed for first-time users, and the hangars and plants pictured on this page were done by the facilities' own staff. Plan on two to three days per section: a day of prep, the coats at 4–8 hours apart, light traffic the next day and full aircraft and forklift duty in 48 hours.

Large hangars are done in sections so the facility stays in service; Dynamic Race Works put down 20,000 square feet over one extended weekend with in-house crew. Preparation is the whole job — a diamond-ground or acid-etched slab that water soaks into, every oil stain removed — and our techs are on the phone and email seven days a week to walk your installer through it.

How much does aerospace hangar epoxy flooring cost per square foot?

In material, delivered free: $1.32–$1.82 per square foot for the Commercial System, $2.00–$2.50 for the Military-Industrial System and $2.50–$2.90 for Heavy Tonnage, with volume pricing on large floors. Contractor-installed epoxy runs $6–$9 per square foot and often uses a thinner product.

The number that matters in a hangar is cost per year, not cost per foot. A thin coating that fails in two years under tug traffic has to be diamond-ground off and redone, with the bay out of service twice. Our systems are rated for 10–15+ years of service, and when a topcoat finally shows wear it's a scuff-and-recoat, not a start-over. Send us your square footage and the traffic you run and we'll price the right system and tell you how many pallets to expect.