Generalizability of Footwear Traction Performance across Flooring and Contaminant Conditions

OCCUPATIONAL APPLICATIONS

This study investigates the correlations between available coefficients-of-friction (ACOF) of 17 work shoes across different flooring and contaminant conditions. Five floorings (two vinyl tiles and three quarry tiles) were tested with water, sodium laurel sulfate, and canola oil. Shoe ACOF performance on a single quarry surface with any of the three contaminants was generally applicable to all other quarry-contaminant conditions. Shoe ACOF performance for a vinyl tile was generally applicable to another vinyl flooring for the same contaminant. These findings are anticipated to reduce the need for redundant shoe ACOF testing and clarify the generalizability of traction testing results.

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Slip
• traction
• coefficient-of-friction
• vinyl
• quarry
• footwear

Additional information

Funding

 Funding for this study was provided by Saf-Gard Safety Shoe Company (Contract #0049178), the National Institute on Aging (R44AG059258), and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (R01OH010940).