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A Study On Porcelain Anti Slip Tile Design

Conference Paper · December 2011

DOI: 10.1109/CHUSER.2011.6163699

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 2011 IEEE Colloquium on Humanities, Science and Engineering Research (CHUSER 2011), Dec 5-6 2011, Penang

A Study On Porcelain Anti Slip Tile Design

Subtitle as needed (paper subtitle)

V. V.Vermol, K.Kamsah, O. H. Hassan, R. Anwar

Department of Ceramics,
Faculty of Art and Design,
Universiti Teknologi MARA
40450 Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia

Abstract—Literally, the application of corundum as an agent of
hardness to glaze surface are determined to the hardness of the
glaze properties itself. Corundum reacts as a coating agent that
allowing surface roughness rating increase. Alumina is a
compound with melting point of about 2,000 °C and sp. gr. about
4.0 is making the glaze component become more durable which
solidify corundum foundation. As a result; it increases 50% slip
resistant rating and reducing 50% of corundum usages as well as
enhancing the image printing of 20-40% of grayscale tonality.
Keywords: Porcelain; tile; ceramic; anti slip; corundum; alumina
I. INTRODUCTION
Porcelain tiles offer a wide range of concept and design to
suit the interest of each individual taste either aesthetically or
personal interest usages. It is considered as one of the ideal
tiles to be use as for floor tiling due to its fine, solid and
complex characteristic nevertheless still works as for wall tile.
Porcelain tiles can be produce either with or without glaze
which normally with rustic finishes, unglazed or polished. Its
rock-solid behavior and can withstand the unconditional
atmosphere making it suitable as for indoor and outdoor usage
[1-4]. Porcelain tiles with a non-slip surface are ideally works
for environment with heavy traffic or area which prone to
wetting and oil stains. Sufficient grip is needed to prevent
slipping, especially in wet or contaminated underfoot
conditions. This means a certain amount of roughness is
needed - measured in microns (millionths of a metre). Thicker,
more viscous contaminants mean that this amount of
‘microroughness’ needs to be greater to protect against
slipping [3-7].
Based from the Malaysian Standards Sectorial Catalogue
of 2007 – No12 - Construction materials & Building Civil
Engineering, House keeping, Entertainment and Sports (page
12), until today, there are no such specific standards which
would deal with the issue of slip resistant especially for heavy
traffic walkway; which indeed would be fully utilized by all
genus of pedestrian every day of our lives. The ministry
however, specifies the responsibilities for preventing slips and
trips at workplace for flooring manufacturers, architects and
designers, employers, workers and footwear manufacturers. It
is very important to understands that a certain class of
standard guidelines for this matter is needed since safety
properties is consider to be one of the major regulations in
ceramic tiles manufacturing standards.
One parameter used to measure the slipperiness of a surface is
the surface friction coefficient (the higher the friction
coefficient, the less slippery the surface). In the UK the Health
& Safety Executive committee has published a comprehensive
guidance of how and why slips and trips occur and how to
prevent them [8-10]. HSE’s current preference is for the use of
the pendulum or the ramp based test methods for assessment
of pedestrian floor surfaces or flooring materials, with
additional information from surface roughness measurement
where applicable. Slip resistance in a tile may be achieved by
the use of surface roughness (micro texture), or of profile
(macro texture), or a combination of the two. Whilst it is
generally accepted that the use of textured or profiled floor.
All these factors combined lead to the conclusion that all slip
resistance data should be treated with care, and is most useful
when it is backed with the support of previous practical
knowledge of successful performance of a tile in service.
From this research results; a glaze coating will eventually
protects the design without spoiling the original design image;
this intricate improvement will be the key of maintaining
design on anti-slip porcelain tile [9].
Practically in the present day, the conventional ways of
producing none slip tiles are by applying amount of corundum
granule as a coating agent to protect the glaze and increases
the level of roughness of the surface. The more quantity
applied, the higher class of slip rating will be achieved.
Subsequently, the higher volume of corundum percentage is
making the tile appearance become opaque and dull
nevertheless higher costing to the production process [9-11].

978-1-4673-0020-9/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE 121

 2011 IEEE Colloquium on Humanities, Science and Engineering Research (CHUSER 2011), Dec 5-6 2011, Penang

II. METHODS

In this work, a standard tile manufacturing process involving Scale

decoration or surface design will be applied to all samples. Pointer
Overall, a coating of anti-slip will be formulated to cover the
surface of a porcelain tile which in advance will enhance the
Starting position
slip-resistant level. As for the design, the process will be
developed using a silk screen method which is more practical
for smaller scale of production. A design will be printed on End of swing
top of the sample tile using a standard porcelain glaze. The tile
used for this work is in 300 x 300 mm size and 6 mm thick.

A glaze coating will eventually protects the design without

spoiling the original design image; this intricate improvement Anvil
will be the key of maintaining design on anti-slip porcelain
tile.
Specimen
The standard porcelain glazed used in this work is composing
of potash feldspar, whiting, kaolin and flint with percentage of
25% each. The amount of glaze prepared in 200g/batch. The
batch is prepared according to the tile that was cut into 5
sections and labeled as SET 1 to SET 5.

The coating or glazing of the tiles begins with only the Fig. 1. The illustration of pendulum testing machine
standard porcelain glazed and labeled as samples no 2, 3, 4, 5
and 6. After the glazing process, all the samples were dried
inside the dryer. A similar process was performed to the other
batches where the standard porcelain of each samples were Another test that was conducted in order to determine the
added with alumina with fixed amount of 7 wt% of the surface slip-rating is ramp test in accordance with: - AS/NZS
standard porcelain glaze. Later, corundum’s were added to all 4586 (Appendix D): Oil-Wet Ramp Test Method. Table II
samples from 1.75 to 8.75 wt/% of standard porcelain glaze. below shows criteria of ramp test method.
The samples were labeled as 2a, 3a, 4a, 5a and 6a. From this
TABLE II. RAMP TEST RESULTS
batch, the corundum amounts were reduced into half. The
batch also dried inside the dryer. Slip angle (°) Slip resistance Location
assessment group
6° to 10° R9 Residential, School,
All dried samples were tested their surface rating using Wet Medical
PTV method in the accordance with: - AS/NZS 4586 (1999). Over 10° to 19° R10 Bathrooms, Warehouse,
Table I below shows the test value. The slip resistance Garages, Commercial
classification of new pedestrian surface materials (Appendix Kitchens
Over 19° to 27° R11 Dairies, Freezers,
B, Dry Floor Friction test method) BS7976-2 was use together Laundries
with Pendulum Testers – Method of operation, 2002. Over 27° to 35° R12 Meat Processing Plant,
Industrial Kitchen
TABLE I. WET PENDULUM TEST VALUE (WET PTV) Over 35° R13 Not subjected
Pendulum Test Value (PTV) *Potential for slip
25 and below High
26 to 35 Moderate B. Test limits recommended by Australian Standard
36 to 65 Low
66 and above Extremely low Test performed on a flat torsion-resistant platform which can e
adjusted longitudinally to gradients between 0° and 45 °. Two
test persons, wearing standard test shoes, each in turn, facing
A. Test limits recommended by UK Slip Resistance Group downhill and with upright posture, walk forwards and
As illustrated in Fig. 1, pendulum test setup was use where a backwards over the tile surface which has been coated with
rubber slider attached to the pendulum arm. Tiles re tested on engine lubricating oil. Angle of inclination will be increase
wet and dry condition. The pendulum arm is released from gradually until the persons slip. The average angle obtained of
given height and the rubber slides on the tile surface. A inclination at which slip occurs determined the friction
reading is obtained from the over-swing of the pendulum arm. characteristics of the tile surface tested. Fig. 2 shows
The reading indicates the potential for slip for the sample. illustration of the ramp test method.

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 2011 IEEE Colloquium on Humanities, Science and Engineering Research (CHUSER 2011), Dec 5-6 2011, Penang

TABLE III. STANDARD GLAZE WITH CORUNDUM PRODUCTION

Fall safely attachment point
APPLICATION
Dried
*Amounts of Surface
weight of
corundum rating
Test glazed
(wt %) (Wet PTV)
samples (g)
1 0 0 -
2 3.5 1.4 26 (R10)
3 7.0 2.8 31 (R10)
4 10.5 4.2 39 (R11)
5 14.0 5.6 52 (R11)
6 17.5 7.0 61 (R11)
* Corundum mixed in standard porcelain glaze.
Pivot point
The surface ratings of the dried glaze on tile samples increases
as the Corundum amount increased. This is due to fact that
Corundum is basically a crystalline form of aluminium oxide
(Al2O3) which hardens and strengthening the glaze surface
making surface roughness rating increase and glaze more
durable.
Fig. 2. The illustration of flat torsion-resistant platform
Table IV shows the surface rating results when the standard
After the surface rating measurement was conducted, all of the glaze are added 7% of alumina while corundum percentage are
samples were fired on a gas kiln at 1200 °C for 1 hour. All of reduced to 50%. Surface ratings indicate that lowest rating
the fired samples are then were examine their design in term achieved is R11, while results in Table V shows the R rating
of grayscale tonality. From this observation, the quality of the percentage differences on added corundum & alumina.
printed design can be confirmed with modified glazed. The
results then compared with the measurement of a standard
laser engraving pixel tonality which should be close to 80%. TABLE IV. STANDARD GLAZE WITH CORUNDUM ALUMINA MIXTURES
Test **Half amounts of Surface rating
corundum (wt%) (Wet PTV)
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 2a 1.75 53 (R11)
3a 3.50 66 (R12)
Standard fired process indicates that samples are consistent 4a 5.25 72 (R12)
and glaze melting point can be adapted to the factory heat 5a 7.00 78 (R12)
work. Upon this consistency it is possible to have this 6a 8.75 83 (R12)
formulation as per production series. Other than that, there are
only few minor defects due to manual hand spraying which
causing small pinholes and sticking during printing due to TABLE V. TANDARD GLAZE WITH CORUNDUM AND ALUMINA
glaze spray too powdery. Shrinkage that was recorded base MIXTURES
from 10 sets of experiments clearly stated that result parallel
to the production shrinkage which is around 8% shrinkage = R differences
Test Corundum Alumina
300 x 300mm (porcelain basic body) with the thickness of 6 (%)
mm. 1 (Control) 0 0 0
2 26 53 50.94
TABLE III shows the results of standard glaze with corundum 3 31 66 53.03
effects used in typical tiles production. The standard porcelain 4 39 72 45.83
glaze was applied to tiles test bars samples with dimension of 5 52 78 33.33
60 x 60 mm x 6 mm thickness. From Table III, the surface 6 61 83 26.50
ratings are shown clearly.
Fig.3 below shows the grayscale tonality testing method to
distinguish the design and tone visibility level. Table VI
described the grayscale percentage in tiles manufacturing.

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 2011 IEEE Colloquium on Humanities, Science and Engineering Research (CHUSER 2011), Dec 5-6 2011, Penang

of glaze. The usage of other types of glazes will change the

percentage and also the component glaze composition.
Experimentation only developed in specific condition of kiln
firing. The experimentation was very consistent due
development was developed in lab basis which only
accommodates such small scale of machineries and
instruments. The results of test bars indicate that, by
strengthening the base formulation will help corundum to
reach higher level of slip rating. This is basically true because
it helps the microgranilla particle to stands on more solid
foundation. By the help of alumina, design tonality will be
more visible compared to standard production
recommendation on corundum. This is logically can be
achieved due to the usage is 50% less corundum than the
existing recommendation but still contributes higher results on
Fig. 3. Design and grayscale tonality R-rating.
TABLE VI. GRAYSCALE PERCENTAGE

Sample ID Percentage of IV. CONCLUSION

in 5 sets of tonality visibility Remarks Application of corundum as an agent of hardness to glaze
experiment (Naked eye) surface are successfully determined. Corundum reacts as a
Base from the grayscale tone, at coating agent that allowing surface roughness rating increases
SET 1
20 % - 40 % this point, halftone is still visible
A/B/C/D/E
to the naked eye. of about 50% of the slip resistant rating and reducing 50% of
SET 2 The visibility reduces when the corundum usages as well as enhancing the image printing of
20% - 30 %
A/B/C/D/E corundum volume increases. 20-40% of grayscale tonality.
The visibility at these state are
very low. Overall the percentage
ST 3
A/B/C/D/E
20 % of visibility can be record as low
as 20 % which normally shading Acknowledgment
defect on a tile occurs.
Authors would like to acknowledge the Universiti Teknologi
Overall the tonality doesn’t change much for each class even MARA (UiTM) for the financial support under the Excellent
from 5 sets of experiment; this result shows the consistency of Fund Scheme. Authors also like to thanks Zamri Abdul
each experiment that was conducted. Fig 4 below shows the Wahab from Ceramic Laboratory of Ceramic Department,
comparisons of R rating achieved from the test bar Faculty of Art and Design, UiTM for his kind technical
experiment. assistance.

R12 REFERENCES

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