Note: This is an edited version of a story that originally appeared here: https://news.engineering.pitt.edu/creating-good-friction-pitt-engineers-aim-to-make-floors-less-slippery/
The University of Pittsburgh’s Kurt Beschorner and Tevis Jacobs will use an award from the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health (NIOSH) to build a model of friction, with the long-term goal of innovating high-friction flooring to prevent occupational slips and falls.
“More than 140,000 workers suffer from fall-related injuries each year, and about half of them result from a slip,” stated Beschorner, associate professor of bioengineering. “Designing specific, high-friction flooring could mitigate these injuries, but we need a better understanding of the flooring factors that lead to friction.”
Studies suggest that small-scale topography—raised features resembling a mountain range on the micron or nanometer scale—is key to managing slips on a surface. Beschorner and Jacobs will measure this type of floor-surface topography and create a predictive model of friction based on the results.
“To date, despite research worldwide, no one has yet reliably connected flooring topography to friction measurements for flooring,” said Eric Astrachan, executive director of the Tile Council of North America. “This is the Holy Grail for flooring design, where an understanding of measurable topography parameters—which also affect aesthetics and cleanability—can be used in the design phase to engineer flooring slip-resistance.”
Traditionally, researchers would use stylus profilometry to measure surface topography, but that technique has its limitations, particularly on a small scale.
“Stylus profilometry sort of functions like a record player—a sharp needle is dragged across the surface, measuring its height as it moves. But this device does not effectively detect the small features that are critical for shoe-floor friction,” explained Jacobs, associate professor of mechanical and materials science. “Instead, we are cutting out a cross-section of the flooring and using electron microscopy, which can measure features that are one thousand times smaller. These new measurements will allow us to establish the science behind roughness-dependent friction, rather than just using trial and error to find the best surfaces.”
“Dr. Beschorner and Dr. Jacobs at the University of Pittsburgh are uniquely qualified to conduct this research that can directly impact worker and consumer safety, a key priority of the Tile Council of North America and our member companies,” Astrachan said. “It is our pleasure to facilitate this research through direct connections to the TCNA Product Performance Testing Laboratory and to the research and production departments of our members.”
