No more slippery floorings

Friction is defined as the resisting force due to rubbing of one surface against another. To properly walk or run, adequate amount of friction is required. When the friction during walking or running reduced, a person can experience an unintentional slip and eventually, a fall. Slips and falls are among the most serious public safety hazards. This fall can lead to fatal or non-fatal injuries such as fractures, dislocations, skin cuts, dislocations, etc. Hence, adequate friction at the shoe–floor contact is necessary to reduce these risks. Major reason of slipping is the quality of flooring installed at a location. Due to less or no knowledge, general public, civil engineers, architect tend to buy floorings which are visually appealing rather than its effectiveness in reducing such incidents. This has led to every third person in India experiencing a fatal or non-fatal fall each year. Although there are traditional devices which measure the friction of flooring and suggest if it is safe for daily activities or not, these devices are outdated and does not consider actual human slipping mechanics. Moreover, these devices are bulky, lab based, and highly expensive to be bought by small floor manufacturers to mark their floorings as “slip-resistant”.

Researchers under Prof Arnab Chanda at IIT Delhi have developed a novel cost-effective, portable and biofidelic floor friction tester to accurately evaluate the effectiveness of slip resistance ability of floorings. This robotic device mimics the actual human slipping motion and calculates the available friction during its motion. The device’s structure is highly modular and is fully programmable for its slipping speeds, normal loads, and slipping angles to take into account different slipping scenarios.

This device has led to several high-quality research published in renowned journals. The working of device was also exhibited in the Industry Day held at IIT Delhi. This device was also presented at the India International Footwear Fair 2023 held at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi and received a tremendous response from floor manufacturers around the world. This device now helps several floor manufacturing industries to test their flooring samples before going into production and helps them decide whether the developed flooring is safe or not.