The present work aims at reducing the friction of rubber soles sliding on ceramic floorings. Fitting bored cylindrical protrusions with different diameters on rubber soles was proposed. Experiments were carried out to evaluate the performance of the proposed protrusions in increasing friction coefficient at dry and contaminated floorings. It was found that, at dry sliding, friction coefficient ...

Ceramic tiles have become very popular and are used in the flooring of offices and shopping malls. As testing the quality of tiles manually in a highly polluted environment in the manufacturing industry is a laborintensive and time consuming process, analysis is carried out on the tile images. This paper discusses an automated system to detect the defects on the surface of ceramic tiles based o...

BACKGROUND hospital falls place a substantial burden on healthcare systems. There has been limited research into the use of hospital flooring as an intervention against fall-related injuries. OBJECTIVE to assess the cost-effectiveness of shock-absorbing flooring compared with standard hospital flooring in hospital wards for older people. DESIGN a cost-utility analysis was undertaken drawing...

BACKGROUND Compliant flooring, broadly defined as flooring systems or floor coverings with some level of shock absorbency, may reduce the incidence and severity of fall-related injuries in older adults; however, a lack of synthesized evidence may be limiting widespread uptake. METHODS Informed by the Arksey and O'Malley framework and guided by a Research Advisory Panel of knowledge users, we ...

Commercial poultry production management practices have been under increased public scrutiny driven by concerns for food safety and animal welfare. Within the United States, wood shavings and raised plastic floors are common flooring systems used in duck production. It is intuitive that each flooring type would present different management challenges influencing physical characteristics of grow...

Six Asian elephants at the Oregon Zoo were observed to determine the effects of a poured rubber flooring substrate on captive Asian elephant behavior. Room utilization also was evaluated in seven rooms used for indoor housing, including Front and Back observation areas. Data were collected in three phases. Phase I (Baseline Phase) examined elephant behavior on old concrete floors. In Phase II (...

Residue powders resulting from cutting and machining operations in slate quarries were processed by a press and sintering route to manufacture ceramic products such as flooring and roofing tiles. The first part of this work consisted of a laboratory study carried out by uniaxially pressing the powders to shape and sintering in air using a muffle type furnace. A plan of sintering experiments was...

In this study, acoustic emissions (AEs) were detected through a variety of different flooring materials using a fibre Bragg grating (FBG). The AEs were generated using a low velocity impact test, and by footstep. The acoustic vibrations cause a strain in the optical fibre, and hence alter the wavelength reflected by the FBG. This strain induced wavelength shift can then easily be detected by co...

Four trials were conducted to determine whether conventional solid or elevated wire mesh flooring, during transport and holding of broilers prior to slaughter, influenced the number of bacteria recovered from feathered and defeathered carcasses. After 4 h off feed, 7-wk-old broilers were placed at commercial density into a modified commercial transport dump-coop on either fiberglass sheeting or...

Compliant flooring aims to prevent fall-related injuries among high-risk older adults in long-term care, but uptake of compliant flooring in this setting is limited. We hosted a one-day stakeholder symposium to identify advantages and disadvantages of implementing compliant flooring in long-term care and the most pressing directions for future research from the perspective of key stakeholders. ...