DURAREF

The most cases of slip and trip accidents occur in the public and commercial sector. The flooring and its condition are a crucial factor in those accidents. As a result of this the testing of the slip resistance of floorings in the public and commercial sector is very important. In the European area three different testing methods are used, which are slip friction measurement, pendulum test and inclined plane. Inaccurate or unstable reference systems, based on commercially available and via trial-and error selected products, lead to critical discrepancies in the assessment of the slip resistance. Reference surfaces are beside shoes and slider the most critical elements in those unstable reference systems.

Together with the long-term availability or reproducibility, the wear of the reference systems during use is another crucial factor. It was determined that for the testing methods suitable reference surfaces with sufficient comparability, reproducibility and transferability are missing. Additionally, there is a lack of objective and test-independent control criteria (based on material- and surface specific parameters) to prove the suitability of the reference surfaces.

As this situation affects the critical significance of the tests up to the point of misinterpretation, the projects goal is the development of unambiguously specified, reproducible, controllable, transferable and robust reference systems based on:

• new topographically defined surface concepts and their control
• state-of-the-art tooling manufacturing capabilities to implement the concepts of new ceramic-based material concepts for wear-resistant surfaces

• specified and optimized production conditions for the manufacturing and conditioning of the ceramic surfaces and

• objective proof of their conformity and durability.