Slippery versus slip resistant work surfaces: The background for a regulatory definition
Abstract
There has been over fifty years of scattered research into the areas of walking/working surface slipperiness and coefficient of friction (COF) measurement. In spite of this research, numerous standards address slip/fail type accidents only in terms of requiring surfaces to be qualitatively useful in providing guidelines for establishing quantitative criteria for "slippery' vs. "slip resistant' combinations of surface, shoe, task, and contaminant conditions. Recommendations applicable to standards making organizations are made. Among them are: (1) changing legally inappropriate descriptor terms such as "nonslip' to "slip resistant'; and (2) defining "slippery' vs. "slip resistant' in terms of quantitative COF values (i.e., for persons walking unloaded on level surfaces a COF of 0.5 would be a reasonable standard).
- Publication:
-
NASA STI/Recon Technical Report N
- Pub Date:
- February 1983
- Bibcode:
- 1983STIN...8413392M
- Keywords:
-
- Decision Making;
- Friction;
- Safety;
- Shoes;
- Sliding;
- Slip;
- Surface Properties;
- Coatings;
- Construction;
- Correlation;
- Friction Reduction;
- Standards;
- Engineering (General)