The National Commission on Product Safety reported in 1970, that falls in the home each year kill about 12,000 and injure 6,000,000 in the U.S.A. Slippery floors are listed as a large contributor to these very high casualty figures. Although there are some standardized test methods that are or may be made suitable for such standards, there are no slipperiness standards for flooring. There is an immediate need for studies aimed at the development and establishment of such standards. Consequently, a preliminary study of floor slipperiness was sponsored by the Building Safety Section of the Center for Building Technology. The study included a state-of-the-art investigation on flooring slipperiness research and a laboratory evaluation of three existing test methods for measuring floor slipperiness. Samples of the three most commonly used resilient flooring materials, vinyl asbestos, vinyl, and linole\am were used in the study, ihe sliding material components for the frictional tests were leather and a commonly used styrene butadiene sole and heel rubber. The tests were performed on both dry and wet surfaces. The results from this study were used in planning a large comprehensive study for the development of accepted floor slipperiness standards. This report contains the results of the preliminary study.
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