Abstract

Slips and falls are common incidences both at workand during leisure activities. Lack of friction on the floor surfacehas been blamed as the source of slips and falls. Friction of flooris one of the dominate factors affecting the risk of slips and falls.In general, a person is more likely to slip when walking on afloor contaminated with water or soapy solution than the drysurface. In this research, we conducted friction measurementson twelve floor tiles. The three surface conditions of the floorswere dry, wet and soapy liquid contaminated conditions. Thehorizontal pull slip meter (HPS) was used. The measuredcoefficient of friction (COF) results showed that the HPSreported the COF readings on the same floor differently. It wasfound that floor tiles and surface condition were bothsignificant on the measured COF. The HPS model defined in thisstudy provides a mathematical description of the measured COFunder the studied floor and surface.