Reducing slips and falls with smarter flooring and surface selections

by arslan_ahmed | August 25, 2023 8:00 pm

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By Jeff Baker

Designing a building, whether for a residential, institutional, or a manufacturing facility, requires thoughtful planning and immense attention to detail. Architects, engineers, and specifiers strive to find a balance between structural and functional requirements while considering aesthetics and sustainability during the planning phase. Their dedication to their craft fills them with a sense of artistic and professional satisfaction; however, this feeling of pride can quickly fade away and be replaced with regret when a fatal accident occurs that could have been prevented.

In 2020, general falls were the leading cause of preventable injuries and the tragic cause of more than 42,000 preventable deaths, according to the National Safety Council (NSC).¹ By understanding the role design and flooring materials play in these preventable events, specifiers can improve safety.

Defining the nature of fall, slip, and trip hazards and understanding how they happen

Understanding the physics of a slip, trip, and fall event and how it happens is the first step to applying building design principles that can help prevent these events from occurring.

• A fall is a sudden, unintended descent to the ground or other object, such as a platform or staircase. According to Safeopedia.com, 66 percent of falls occur on the same level due to a slip or trip.²
• A slip is when someone loses traction as they walk. Even when a slip does not result in a fall, the effects can have impact on the lower back and joints, depending on how the person recovers from the slip. Slips commonly occur on wet or oily surfaces, or when walking on surfaces with varying levels
  of traction.
• A trip occurs when someone encounters a foreign object while walking. Common causes include uneven walking surfaces, cluttered areas, obstructed views, and poor lighting.

Slips and falls commonly happen when the surface traction of flooring unexpectedly changes. The industry standard for measuring traction is called the coefficient of friction (COF), which measures how much resistance two surfaces encounter when moving across each other, such as a shoe moving across a wet floor.

COF is measured on a scale between zero to one. The closer a material comes to one, the greater its ability to prevent slips and falls. Regulatory agencies and industry safety groups have varying recommendations on COF:

• The National Floor Safety Institute (NFSI) notes that a COF of 0.4 or less is unsafe, while a COF of 0.6 or higher is considered safe.
• The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) maintains that the COF for a walking surface should be 0.5 or higher.
• The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires walking surfaces to have a minimum COF of 0.6 for flat surfaces and 0.8 for inclines.

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As specifiers match flooring to a building’s different spaces, COF is a data-driven measurement that can be used to make decisions about materials.

Recognizing potential danger zones

In any given facility, 10 percent or more of the space can be considered high-risk for slips, trips, and falls. The specifier can consider the following areas as high-priority for implementing high-traction flooring material selection:

Changes in the walking surface

Slips, trips, and falls are most likely to occur when a person moves from a higher friction surface, such as cement, to a lower friction surface, such as ice. Design teams should be aiming to create continuity throughout the facility design and material choices to reduce changeovers from one material to another.

Wet environments

In manufacturing facilities that process chemicals, foods, beverages, and other wet products, water, oil, grease, and other liquids can make already low-friction surfaces even more slippery. Also, trenches and round drains that funnel liquids are often used in these production plants as well. If employees walk over drains during work, they should be fabricated with anti-slip material.

High-traffic thorough fairs

Main walkways are inherently high-risk areas for slips, trips, and falls because of the amount of people in one space. Maximize safety for people in these bustling crosshairs by limiting access.

Operations areas

In industrial buildings, employees operate carts, trucks, and forklifts that can be difficult to control on slippery surfaces. Specify a surface that can withstand heavy-duty equipment and high-traffic by providing high traction despite wet or oily conditions.

Production lines

Workers also engage with critical equipment and supplies required for production, such as mixers, cutting tools, and knives. In-ground mixing augers are particularly easy to fall into because they are below the floor. If surrounded by diamond plate, which becomes highly slippery when wet from pouring and product spillage, a dangerous combination presents itself. Since the secondary consequences of a slip-and-fall accident can be severe or even deadly, these areas require maximum safety. Flooring materials around dangerous equipment should exceed the recommended COF standard and be constructed with technologies designed to maintain high-friction status under normal operating conditions for the area.

Indoor/outdoor spaces

Inside/outside areas, such as loading docks, bays, foyers, and entryways, are exposed to outdoor elements and people track in mud, snow, and water inside from outdoor. For instance, commercial buildings that welcome the public often want to make a great first impression. They import beautiful Italian marble for grand entryways, but fail to consider how slippery the marble becomes on a rainy day when people enter with wet feet and dripping umbrellas. Maintenance crews often roll out “slippery when wet” signs and neoprene mats as temporary quick fixes to mitigate the slippery situation, however, as mats wear and curl on the edges, they become trip hazards themselves and another item that must be constantly monitored and replaced.

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Elevated surfaces

Injuries from slip, trip, and fall events are only multiplied at elevation. Platforms, catwalks, mezzanines, crossovers, stairs, ladders, and other elevated structures should be a top priority for any risk mitigation.

Once high-risk zones and activities are identified, it is time to select the right walking and working surface technology for a project.

Evaluating flooring and surface materials for safety

According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CSPC), the incorrect choice of flooring materials contributes to two million preventable slips and falls annually. Choosing the wrong material technology in high-risk areas is very dangerous. Research and evaluate available surface technologies to pre-engineer a safety solution into designs, preventing a potential slip-and-fall event from ever occurring, even in challenging operating environments.

While COF is an important measurement, it is not the only factor to consider. Some flooring, such as brushed concrete, can have a very high COF when first installed, but may rapidly lose its surface traction from wear or surface contaminants. Brushed concrete can go from a COF of 0.8, down to a value of 0.3 or less, creating an unsafe situation. High-risk areas should have durable surface materials with long-lasting high-friction traction.

Many options are available when choosing a surface technology appropriate for walking or working environments. Each option provides an opportunity to balance the safety and functional needs of the different parts of a facility against the financial constraints and limitations of a project.

High-traction metal technologies

All metal high-friction surface technologies provide a high COF surface and maintain anti-slip, high-traction properties far longer than other options. The technology provides effective slip-and-fall prevention combined with long-term durability. Premium all-metal surfaces generally incur higher initial costs than other options but produce significant life-cycle cost savings. These savings, coupled with the associated cost savings from avoiding slip-and-fall events, often result in a payback of the added initial costs in just a few years or even months. This surface technology is also easily installed and maintained by building trades.

Diamond plate

Traditionally seen as a safety surface, diamond plate has been the default safety plate choice for decades. The material is easily fabricated and provides a durable metal surface that is simple to install. Unfortunately, diamond plate loses significant surface traction when wet and becomes an extremely hazardous walking surface. Wet diamond plate often results in lower COF surface values than generally available on wet, smooth metal plates without embossed diamond patterns.

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Epoxy, phenolic, or chemical flooring

Chemical flooring treatments with added particulates to increase surface traction offer an economical alternative for large surface area coverage. Many production facilities use this approach to treat concrete surfaces over wide areas. Designers may choose from various chemical mixes and formulations to increase surface hardness or chemical resistance to help meet operational needs. This option often requires pre-treatment and various curing times to ensure maximum performance, which may significantly disrupt current operations, and needs to be taken into consideration with the construction phasing and scheduling. It is important to monitor surface conditions and reapply this flooring when it starts to peel or flake.

Fiber-reinforced plastic (FRP) products

Fiber-reinforced plastic is a composite material made up of polymer supported with fibers for added strength. Available in plate, stair tread, and grating options, FRP products provide excellent chemical resistance, and lightweight and good traction. While not as durable as metal flooring or other durable chemical options, FRP products provide a competitive cost option. FRP products tend to wear more quickly than other available technologies and require some additional installation and have fabrication challenges.

Ceramic tile or dairy brick

A traditional choice for walking and working services, tile and dairy tile often make up a significant percentage of a facility’s walking surface. There are a wide variety of material types available to address the aesthetic and functional needs of a project. Easily installed and replaced when needed, tile surfaces provide an effective and economical choice for large area coverage.

Surface friction available from different tile types will vary greatly. Research the COF of commercial tiles available before including in project specifications. Much like diamond checker plates, tiles can become dangerously unsafe when wet or contaminated with other substances. Dairy brick was initially used to help transfer products by sliding along the floor by reducing its surface COF when wet.

Make a financial case for safety

Choosing the right surfaces during specification reduces the need for mitigation or material retrofits after construction is complete, saving thousands of dollars. More importantly, pre-engineering the right technological solution into a project prevents slip-and-fall events from ever occurring, averting people from being seriously injured or worse.

The 2021 Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index (WSI) identified falls, slips, and trips as the cause of more than 33 percent of the top 10 most disabling workplace injuries.³

The report estimates these injuries cost businesses approximately $19 billion per year. While several direct costs associated with a slip-and-fall event are covered by Worker’s Compensation Insurance or a facilities risk management carrier, owners incur additional indirect costs associated with each event, often exceeding the direct costs owners/employers incur. These can include lost production time, recruiting and training new employees, increasing insurance premiums, low employee morale, and others.

While it is impossible to put a numerical value on human life, numerous studies have proven that investments in safety yield big returns.

Another Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index (WSI) surveyed executives on safety spending for insights on return on investment (ROI), and the findings are encouraging. An overwhelming 95 percent of leaders said workplace safety has a positive effect on financial performance, and of those, more than 60 percent report generating at least a $3 return for every dollar invested in safety.⁴

Evolving technologies provide designers with a wide variety of options to include pre-engineered solutions and materials with COF numbers that give the anti-slip for safety and productivity in their facilities. Designers and specifiers have new technologies at their fingertips to improve the function and safety of facilities, while achieving the aesthetic appearance of their designs and maintaining high quality.

Leave a legacy of safety

Nothing is more devasting than being brought in to fix a problem that could have been prevented during design and construction stages with a material design and or pre-engineered solution. Slip-and-fall events are nearly 100 percent preventable either through proper technological solutions during design or through remediation with available technologies as site conditions change and evolve and with specifying anti-slip materials. Understanding the strengths, challenges, and costs related to the technologies and materials available today allow designers to create safe, efficient, and cost-effective structures.

Safety consultants, such as certified walking-working surface specialists, can provide invaluable input during design, the development of the specifications, and assist in evaluating evolving conditions within a facility. Equipped with instruments such as tribometers, which measure surface traction, and profilometers, which provide microstructure surface analysis, certified walking-working surface specialists can assess the safety and longevity of surfaces with a data- and scientific-focused approach. Ultimately, this helps specifying engineers prevent any problems at the start of a project and mitigate any problems which arise during a facility’s use.

With the tools, materials and technologies available today, safety is integrated into a project at the first step and makes all subsequent steps safe and productive.

Notes

¹ See the statistics on injury-related deaths, injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/deaths-by-demographics/top-10-preventable-injuries[5].

² Learn more about fall-related injuries, www.safeopedia.com/definition/189/slips-trips-and-falls-stf#what-does-slips-trips-and-falls-st-f-mean[6].

³ Visit the 2021 Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index (WSI), business.libertymutual.com/insights/2021-workplace-safety-index-the-top-10-causes-of-disabling-injuries[7].

⁴ Read this report on workplace safety, ergoweb.com/more-liberty-mutual-data-on-workplace-safety[8].

Author

Jeff Baker is the sales director at SLIPNOT. He has more than 35 years of experience in the manufacturing safety industry and chemical engineering space. His career at SLIPNOT began as a technical salesperson in 1998. Baker has been involved on projects worldwide and has spent more than a decade working in various chemical, metallurgical, and environmental labs including the Masco Corporation Research & Development Center, Environmental Chemistry Laboratory from 1983 to 1990, environmental laboratories between 1990 and 1996, and a steel service center in Detroit from 1996 to 1998. He holds a degree in civil engineering from Wayne State University, as well as a degree in chemistry from Lawrence Institute of Technology.

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