Procedia Manufacturing 3 (2015) 5007 - 5013Ħth International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (AHFE 2015) and the

Therefore, the best strategy to prevent slips/falls should be keeping the floor dry all the time. The slip resistant effect shown as the floor roughness (Ra) must be much greater than 40μm and Rtm must be much higher than 185μm while the floor contaminated by liquid with viscosities higher than 2mPa.s. With the liquid (water or soda) viscosities were lower than 2mPa.s, the slip resistant effect only shown as the floor roughness (Ra) was larger than 28μm and Rtm was greater than 145μm. No matter how rough the floor is, the coefficient of friction approaches zero while the viscosity larger than 38 mPa.s. The results demonstrate that the higher the liquid viscosity the lower the coefficient of friction. Therefore, this study discussed the influences of liquid viscosity and floor roughness upon slip-resistance effect adopting two shoe materials, six liquid with different viscosity and six floors with different roughness. In kitchens, oil, sauces and liquid with higher viscosity are easily spread on floor. The appropriate roughness of floor surface could be effective to improve the squeeze film effect caused by liquid while the floor is contaminated by liquid or oil. According the formula of squeeze film, when the floor is contaminated with liquid, the higher the liquid viscosity the longer time to connect shoes with floor, the higher the risk of falling. Slipping, tripping and falling which causes serious damages and losses happen all the time within household and work areas. Abstract of research paper on Economics and business, author of scientific article - Ching-Chung Chen, Zhi-Xuan Chen, Chih-Lin Chang, Fang-Ling Lin

How to test slip viscosity