Problems and progress in the development of standards for quantifying friction at the walkway interface

Walkway-safety tribometers (WSTs) are instruments that measure the friction between a test foot and a walkway surface. Different WSTs, because they measure friction in different ways, often give different results in a given situation. This creates ‘marketplace confusion’, which has caused the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) Committee on Standards (COS) to mandate that ASTM Committee F-13 on Safety and Traction for Footwear implement ‘generic’ standards, which do not reference proprietary equipment. A committee appointed by the ASTM Board of Directors, chaired by the incoming ASTM Chairman of the Board, was formed to assist Committee F-13 in this task. This paper presents the evolution of WST standards and discusses progress in the development of a set of ‘generic’ WST standards.