Abstract
This paper presented an experimental study of slip resistance characteristics of shoes and floor surface contact with special focus on the effect of surface roughness, outsole material and mechanical abrasion. The factors that affected the results of slip resistances were investigated for four kinds of rubbers and five kinds of floor samples using the VIT(English XL) tribometer. The slip resistance was observed to increase gradually with increasing roughness for five kinds of floor roughness. In the higher surface roughness (larger than $11.5{\mu}m$), the slip resistance increased more rapidly and exceeded safety criteria at $22.60{\mu}m$. The slip resistance was observed to decrease with increasing hardness of outsole, except for butylenes rubber, which seemed to show the material property. The slip resistance decreased with number of trials. In the first several times(5 or 6 trial), the slip resistance decreased more rapidly, whereafter it approached gradually constant value. The slip resistance of surfaces has generally been shown to increase with floor surface roughness and to decrease with hardness of outsole and number of trials under the wet condition.