Recycled rubber tiles are widely used as a flooring material in hospitals, factories, kid gardens and washrooms. In the present work, the main objective is to investigate the effect of their hardness and thickness on the friction coefficient when sliding against the rubber sole. Based on the experimental observations, it was found that friction coefficient, displayed by sliding of rubber sole against dry flooring tiles, drastically decreased with increasing the hardness of the tested flooring tiles, while increased with increasing normal load. At water and detergent wetted as well as oil lubricated sliding, soft tested rubber showed higher friction coefficient than the harder one. Besides, dry sliding showed significant increase of friction coefficient with increasing material thickness. In the presence of detergent and oil on the sliding surfaces, friction coefficient drastically decreased to values lower than that displayed by water. Presence of sand particles on the flooring tiles increased friction coefficient as the thickness and the load increased. It can be recommended that it is necessary to avoid the use of relatively higher hardness for flooring tiles in bathrooms where water and detergent exist. In the presence of sand particle on the sliding surfaces, friction coefficient recorded relatively lower values. As the hardness increased friction coefficient drastically decreased.
Ali et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
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