Chanda A, Jones TG, Beschorner KE; Generalizability of Footwear Traction Performance across Flooring and Contaminant Conditions; IISE Transactions Occupational Ergonomics and Human Factors, vol. 6(2), pp. 98-108, 2018.

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT

Background: To prevent slip and fall events at the workplace, mechanical slip testing is conducted on shoes. Such experiments may involve redundant testing across floorings and contaminant conditions, causing wasted time and effort.

Purpose: Quantify the correlations between shoe traction across different contaminant-flooring conditions to reduce redundant slip-testing efforts.

Methods: The available coefficient-of-friction (ACOF) was quantified for 17 shoes across five floorings and three contaminant conditions. Redundant testing conditions were identified when the shoe ACOF values for one floor-contaminant condition were highly correlated with a second floor-contaminant condition.

Results: High correlations were observed among quarry floorings across different contaminants and among vinyl (composite tile) floorings with the same contaminant. However, vinyl floorings exhibited low correlations with quarry floorings. Low correlations were also observed across contaminants within vinyl tiles.

Conclusions: This study was able to determine the generalizability of traction performance of shoes across vinyl and quarry floorings. This information is anticipated to reduce redundant traction testing of shoes across vinyl and quarry floorings.