gal/elm? 590 s“ “ - Hcceleraied [Hear Tests - 0n Common - Flour-covering materials Mama r952 TEXAS AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION R. D. LEWIS. DIRECTOR, CDLLEGE ST AAAA N, TEXAS SUMMARY t...‘ i» Accelerated wear tests made on six common iloor covering materials indicated there are variations in the changes oi appearance and wear in these materials. Solid sheet vinyls and rubber tiles showed significantly less wear than asphalt tiles, vinyl-i asbestos tiles. linoleums and cork. Asphalt tiles showed significantly more wear than the other iloor covering materials tested. Maintenance cannot be recommended ior decreasing wear, as determined irom these tests. except on linoleums and cork. Waxing may be desirable on all materials to maintain appearance. With the exception oi rubber tile. light-solid or light-mottled colored materials generally showed less change in appearance than dark-solid or dark-mottled materials. Solid-colored materials showed more change in appearance than mottled materials. Dark colors in rubber tiles gave the least change in appearance. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Recognition is given the Department oi Genetics oi the Texas AcSM College System which supervised the statistical analysis oi the wear data. 4 This research was set up in 1954 as part oi the Southern Regional Housing Proiect S-8. CONTENTS Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . v . . V . . _ . . . . . . . . . 2 Acknowledgments . . . . . .- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . R V . , . . , . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . 2 wt Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . _ , i. .v . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . 3 Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V . . . . . . . . , . . , . . . . . . . 3 Results and Conclusions . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 M BUILDINGS in 13 Southern States are valued at approximately $6,500,000,000. A r portion of this investment is in homes. terior covering, surfacing and finishing ma- s normally account for 8 to 2O percent of _f~ of new home construction. ¢oor coverings make up a large portion of nterior finish. The costs of maintenance and f ement of floor coverings contribute heavily ye cost of home maintenance. Qccelerated wear tests on floor covering ma- s were conducted by the Department of Ag- _ural Engineering in an effort to simulate ear conditions experienced in a home. The i- factor could not be reproduced in such a y and any changes in the material caused me could not be observed. It also was im- ble to reproduce exactly the effects of hu- traffic on a floor covering material. It was ed that the customer would prefer to have material maintain its original appearance ; wearing and aging, and that any type of zge would be objectionable. PROCEDURE aboratory tests were begun in 1955 to de- "ne the useful life of different covering ma- __ s available for use in farm homes. Addi- l tests are planned in which these materials 1e observed in home installations. 'x common floor covering materials—solid _ vinyls, rubber tiles, vinyl-asbestos tiles, jums, corks and asphalt tiles—were used to _ uct 63 test specimens 2 x 2 feet in size. tions in specimens were constructed from ame material by using different material esses or backings, or both. Several dupli- specimens of each material thickness and ng combination were necessary since all the ffwith the desired replications could not be on a single 2 x 2-foot sample. eovering materials were installed on plywood “adhesives, as-P-Irecommended by the manu- ers. A minimum of four spots on each le were subjected to accelerated wear with -- tively, instructor, associate professor and profes- Department of Agricultural Engineering. celeraied lllear Tests 0n Common Flour-covering materials B. l2. Stewart, 0. I2. Kunze and Price H0bq00d* an abrasive wearing machine for 10 periods of 5 minutes each. Several of the samples received eight wear spots. The four additional wear spots were produced in the development of the test pro- cedure. . .- Each sample with four areas of wear contain- ed three spots or areas on which a coarse abra- sive was used and one spot on which a fine abra- sive was used to accelerate wear. Two of the spots with the coarse abrasive were worn wet, the third Was worn dry. The spot with the fine abrasive was Worn dry only. This method of sub- dividing permitted comparisons of Wear which re- sulted from the use of different sizes of dry abra- sives and the use of Wet and dry abrasives of the __ _ same size and of different sizes. The abrasive consisted of air-dried sand which had been screened to two levels of fineness. The coarse abrasive consisted of all the sand particles passing through a 40-mesh screen. The finer abrasive consisted of all particles passing through a 50-mesh screen. These grit sizes were selected as representative of the sizes of sand which are commonly carried into the home by pedestrain traffic. Grit sizes may vary with dfferent local- ities depending on the types of soils which pre- dominate in the area. Only the coarser or the finer grit was used on a particular test spot. To determine the effect of maintenance on wear, two sample of each material were Waxed with. three coats of recommended liquid wax be- — DRY ABRASIVE WEAR G WET ABRASIVE WEAR TOTAL WEAR (INCHES) MAINT ’__ U ‘g 2 2' 2' E '2 2 s" s" s" s‘ <1 <1 < <1 < 401E E F: Z i 2 2 2 2 2 2,92 2 2 2 oi o o am o o zz zm 22 zm z z: g u: a m x 4 m- _| m m I ,_ m o <( O a h! 3 z U w u: n: - —1 ' I _| >-